Survey: Should the U.S. recruit nurses from other countries?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

The results from allnurses.com survey were:

Survey: Should the U.S. recruit nurses from other countries?

Out of 2630 participants:

No 56.20 %

Yes 43.80 %

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I can't believe what I read in this forum! How come US nurses feel so great about themselves? That they are above par compared to the rest of the nurses worldwide. They talk as if they are incomparable. Do you know why you have shortage of nurses in your country, the almighty US of A??????????????? Its because you cant find contentment in your backyard. YOu want every penny you can get from the company you are working. Nursing is service isnt it? For every patient you turn you want to get paid. Your life is not complete without money. Well, these foreign nurses turns out to be the compassionate ones, who works for a cause to serve their patient. US nurses, please, if you are disgruntled with your present work in the hospital, pack up and go home, look for another job. Let the foreign nurses do your job. If you're not happy, find happiness somewhere else. Dont attack the foreign nurses, they mean well when they serve their patients.

way too much generalization. there is good and bad in every country. and every possible job type you can imagine. stop generalizing everyone. j

To Janet, sorry for the generalization I made. I was moved by the nasty remarks I read, I was referring th those who made them and sad to say, most of those of made comments are in the negative. It is too unfair to the foreign nurses who are working hard and doing their best to be of service to their patients. What if these foreign nurses turned out to be the US Nurses in other countries? US nurses, think about it.

Originally posted by Gabe

I can't believe what I read in this forum! How come US nurses feel so great about themselves? That they are above par compared to the rest of the nurses worldwide. They talk as if they are incomparable. Do you know why you have shortage of nurses in your country, the almighty US of A??????????????? Its because you cant find contentment in your backyard. YOu want every penny you can get from the company you are working. Nursing is service isnt it? For every patient you turn you want to get paid. Your life is not complete without money. Well, these foreign nurses turns out to be the compassionate ones, who works for a cause to serve their patient. US nurses, please, if you are disgruntled with your present work in the hospital, pack up and go home, look for another job. Let the foreign nurses do your job. If you're not happy, find happiness somewhere else. Dont attack the foreign nurses, they mean well when they serve their patients.

So Gabe, Do you work for FREE??? JUST WONDERING!!!

Level2Trauma-

Is your question an admission of guilt? US Nurses should stop acting like spoiled brats--- detrimental to the nursing profession-- not the hiring of foreign nurses. My answer to your question? I work with tons of patience and I am not calculative. Why not practice the same? That way, you lessen stress in your workplace and may I add, work harmoniously with others. Sorry to say, but I just love my workplace and the way things are going. You just have to learn how to appreciate things around you, that way things fall into the right place. Nursing is great!

Specializes in Mental health, organization and leadership.

I agree with the people who wrote that we should not generalize this question. Face the fact: There are excellent nurses both from the US, Canada, Brazil, Sweden and Australia etc as well as there are CRAP-nurses too, from ALL countries. I also agree that it`s wrong if US nurses have to work under worse conditons than foregin nurses. It should be the same for everyone, no matter where you come from? If you have the skills required for a job, you should get the same salary+benefits+working conditions no matter from where you are.

Just a question: From many of you it seems like the US have started an organized form of reqruite foregin nurses?! If that is the case, I must agree with some of the people who DON`T think that that should be the case. I don`t think that it can be good for, as many of you have said, improve the workconditions for nurses aldready working in the US. What I thought you were talkning about in the beginning, was nurses like me, who are comming as an indiviual to the US, to live for 1-2 years. Then I feel that I should be able to work as a RN too, would`nt that be a waste if I could`nt? Otherwise I will be forced to become a housewife, well well, maybe it`s a nice life too, who knows?!:)

Specializes in Mental health, organization and leadership.

Just a thing I forgot to add in my previous posting: I was talking about how happy we are here in Sweden that foregin nurses will come and work here. Then I was NOT talking about organized recruited nurses from long distance countries, but individuals who of some reason are living in Sweden. At my last job we had one nurse from the US, one from Finland and two from Iran. The were really doing a great job, especially when we had foregin patients. For example, in Sweden we have got a LOT of immigrants from Iran/Irak. Many of thise (mainly the older) have never learnt the language here. I can promise I don`t know what we would have done withour our persian nurses when we got patients, only speaking persian... Thise "foregin" nurses are working under the same conditions as the swedish nurses are, so it`s not a problem!

Originally posted by Dplear

Maybe I am biased since I married one of those"foriegn" nurses 14 years ago, but I beieve that we have plentyof room for foriegn nurses here in the USA.

I have never seen such a large collection of racist people as I have seen here on this thread. as for English speaking, theses nurse MUST pass an english proficency exam, take the CGFNS, and then they must alos take the NCLEX...even those nurses from Canada must take the NCLEX here in Texas.

Walk accrross a streeet in in major city in the US and listen to the voices...you will hear every language known to man. That is what makes us strong as a nation...our diversity. Theses nurses from foriegn lands are more than welcome in by me to work along side of me...as long as they prove themselves of being capable. This also includes NATIVE nurses born trained and taught here...I have run across many American Nurses I would never trust to touch anyone.

In this day and age of SEVER shortages of nurses lets get the help we need now and work on the problem at the same time.

AND STOP BEING SUCH RACIST PEOPLE!!!!! ( by the way it is also a FEDERAL crime to pay a foriegn nurse less than their Amercan counterpart in the same facility just because they are from a froiegn land. ):(

I don't believe the posts refer to anyone being a racist, instead, I believe it refers to saving what dignity and benefits (if any) that we have left in nursing. So, you can climb down off of your" HIGH HORSE" now. It is about getting the respect, pay, and benefits that we as a profession deserve. There may be a law against paying foreign nurses less than their counterparts. However, Is there a law against a complete freeze on pay raises and benefits. I think not!!! BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU SUPPORT... IN THE END... IT MAY NOT SUPPORT YOU!!!

:(

ANA Addresses the Cause for and Solutions to the Nursing Shortage at Senate Committee Hearing -

Washington, DC -- Today Ann O'Sullivan, MSN, RN, testified on behalf of the American Nurses Association (ANA) before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia. O'Sullivan, president of the Illinois Nursing Association, providedcomments on efforts to improve the recruitment and retention of registered nurses (RNs)..........

O'Sullivan further highlighted the problems caused by inadequate staffing and mandatory overtime. She stated, "There is not a current shortfall in the number of nurses, per se. Rather, there is a shortage of positions that these RNs find attractive." O'Sullivan went on to explain, "Nurses are, understandably, reluctant to accept positions in which they will face inappropriate staffing, be confronted by mandatory overtime, inappropriately

rushed through patient care activities and face retaliation if they report unsafe practices." ...........

In addition, O'Sullivan expressed the opposition that she and the ANA share about the use of immigration as a means to address staffing shortages. ANA has serious ethical concerns with the recruitment of foreign-trained nurses when there is a worldwide shortage of nurses. O'Sullivan insisted, "We should not look overseas when the real problem is the fact that the U.S. health care industry has failed to maintain a work environment that is conducive to safe, quality nursing practice and that retains experienced American nurses in patient care."

http://www.ana.org

In other words, Fix the problems that are causing our own nurses to refuse to work at the bedside and you wont have to go bringing unsuspecting nurses halfway around the world & expect them to accept working in the same intolerable conditions that we refuse to work in.

remember this??

"Recruiting campaigns to attract staff from abroad who can help prop up our stretched health service are condemning many to low pay and squalid living conditions, reports Anthony Browne

Sunday May 27, 2001 The Observer

It started with a desperate, hand-scrawled letter pleading for help. 'We came here to make our lives better, not to have a miserable life. We don't want to create any trouble, all we want is peace and a better future. In you, rest our care.' This weekend the five Filipina nurses who wrote the letter arrived at Victoria coach station in London, having finally escaped from the nursing home in Bristol where they worked.

Their escape was arranged by Father Carlo Conde, a Catholic priest, and Alan Reily, head of the Filipino Association, who described the threats and appalling conditions they faced as 'slavery by the back door'. This weekend they are staying in a secret 'safe house' away from their former employer, still too frightened to speak to outsiders.

They have escaped from probably the most shocking and large-scale forms of exploitation seen in recent times in Britain. Hundreds of vulnerable overseas nurses are being trapped in what unions and royal colleges denounce as a 'modern form of slavery'. The desperately underpaid and overworked nurses are lured to Britain by private recruitment agencies and nursing homes, who then stop them from leaving by confiscating their passports and work permits and threatening them with deportation at full costs.

Up to 30 nurses a week are escaping through a network of safe houses in a system similar to the underground 'railroad' that helped slaves escape to freedom in the US. In the next couple of weeks, the nursing homes and their owners will face the first legal challenges.

The nurses, from the Philippines, Africa and India, are recruited with false promises, forced to sign illegal contracts as soon as they arrive in Britain and made to live in cramped, sub-standard accommodation.

They are often made to take massive pay cuts, work more than 60 hours a week, hand over what pay they do get straight back to their employers, and are prevented from getting the qualifications that will allow them to work elsewhere. They have been threatened with massive fines and deportation if they complain, threaten to leave or join a union, and their families back home are sometimes threatened with violence.

Caroline Collins, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'It is happening all over. I would classify it as a modern form of slavery.' Karen Jennings, head of nursing at the trade union Unison, said: 'It is exploitation of the worst kind. The critical shortage of nurses has got more acute in the private sector over the last few years, and it's a direct result of that.'

The nurses from Bristol were told they would be earning £6 an hour, but were only paid £4 an hour, below the minimum wage. From their monthly pay cheque of just £478, £100 was deducted as an unofficial 'training fee'. But they weren't getting trained and their employer prevented them from getting a UK qualification.

They heard about Reily through friends and wrote to him. 'A year ago people were coming to me for help in dribs and drabs, now they are coming every day,' said Reily. At one point he had 15 rescued nurses sleeping in his house, and now rents a safe house.

When nurses arrive at Heathrow, they are often met by an agent, who forces on them 'contract substitution'. 'They are told to sign a contract that, rather than giving them the £18,000 a year they were promised, gives them £11,000 a year,' said Reily.

Highly qualified nurses are often forced into menial, unskilled work. One eye specialist nurse was told she would work in Moorfields Eye Hospital, but when she arrived was told that she had to work in a nursing home instead. An intensive care nurse had to work in a nursing home, doing 12-hour shifts in the laundry.

One group of Filipina nurses, working in Wales, visited Theresa, a Unison official. 'They were physically shaking, they were so frightened,' said Theresa. The nurses' families all had to pay £2,500 for them to come to the UK, with one couple selling the family home to ensure their child had a better life.

But the nurses' contract said they weren't allowed sick leave, and paid them £6 an hour, compared with British workers who got £10. They have to work overtime, but don't get paid it and are forced to live in expensive, dingy rooms. The owner constantly threatens the nurses with deportation if they break their contract or join a union. When they refused to work more than 48 hours, he turned off their gas and electricity. The employer has connections in the Philippines and has threatened to tell the nurses' families that they have been disgraced.

In the next couple of weeks, Unison hopes to take the 20 nurses away to safety and get them employment in an NHS hospital.

A recruitment agency in Marble Arch advertised in India for nurses in cardiac care, telling them they would get free accommodation, free uniforms, free meals and free flights. For the opportunity, they had to pay 32,000 rupees (£480). 'We were told we were going to work in the NHS, but when we got off the plane, we were told the NHS had no vacancies,' said one of those who responded to the advert.

Like the hundred other Indian nurses who followed her, she ended up working for a group of nursing homes in Nottingham and Leicester. They have to pay £20 a month for their uniforms and £30 a week to sleep three each in old hospital rooms that reek of urine. Rather than being paid £5 an hour as promised, they get £4.

But the nurses are threatened that, if they leave within two years, they have to pay a £3,000 fine to cover 'training costs'. If they do qualify and leave after two years, their contract forces them to go on paying £85 a month for a year, but so far none has qualified.

At a nursing home in Kent, Filipina nurses were paid £9,000, not the £11,000 they were promised. They were contracted to work 36 hours a week, but were forced to work 48. This week Unison hopes to launch an industrial tribunal against the home.

Unison's Karen Jennings said the trouble is that any employer can apply for a work permit for foreign nurses, without any checks or safeguards. The Department for Education and Employment, which issues work permits, is investigating some of the allegations. "

http://caring4you.net/news

and

https://allnurses.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=617&highlight=british+foreign+recruitment

Youre confused again. Or in your hatred for an organization which you have nothing to do with, just dont read the whole thing and dont know what youre talking about.

If you look at anything the ANA has said on the issue of the bedside nursing shortage & recruitment/retention, you will see that they repeatedly, along with the state associations & so many nurses, have said that NO effort to recruit or retain new nurses will be effective UNLESS and UNTIL working conditions & compensation are repaired FIRST. Read any of the Senate Hearing testimonies, any of the articles that have been posted on this website, any of the interviews & you will see that the ANA & the state associations all say solutions to the crisis are "multifaceted" - we need solutions to the workplace inadequacies & as well as efforts to bring more students to the profession but that before we put all our focus on finding NEW students, we have to fix the workplace conditions that are causing the nurses we have to leave the bedside - or the same thing will happen with the new nurses. You will see that the ANA & the state associations have all said the government can fund all the nursing schools, nursing programs, and nursing students it can find, but if the workplace is not improved, it wont make a bit of difference.

"ANA has serious ethical concerns with the recruitment of foreign-trained nurses when there is a worldwide shortage of nurses. O'Sullivan insisted, "We should not look overseas when the real problem is the fact that the U.S. health care industry has failed to maintain a work environment that is conducive to safe, quality nursing practice and that retains experienced American nurses in patient care." "

"These factors, which point to a massive shortage, make it imperative that we be able to attract new nurses into the profession. We cannot do that until working conditions are improved," said ANA President Mary Foley.

"The results of the ANA survey reveals that the recent reductions in the RN staffing have negatively impacted patient care, the work environment for nurses, the perception of nursing as a career, and the staffing flexibility needed to address temporary staffing shortages. These changes have caused such a deterioration in the work environment that nurses are opting not to accept staff nurse positions. After all, how many of us would want to work in an environment where we have little to no control over the number of hours that we work, the quality of the work we produce, or the ability to change our work environment?"

"ANA has long supported many of the remedies the report suggests, including increasing wages, improving working conditions and lowering education costs.

Several of these remedies have been incorporated in the Nursing Employment and Education Development (NEED) Act (S 721) and the Nurse Reinvestment Act (S 706 and HR1436), which the ANA worked on closely with members of Congress.

ANA is also working with health care leaders in the Senate and the House on a bill to ban the use of mandatory overtime, along with a number of other workforce and staffing initiatives"

"We must strive to make direct-care an attractive vocation for our high-caliber RNs. Nurses, administrators, other health care providers, health system planners, and consumers must come together in a meaningful way to create a system that supports quality patient care and all health care providers. We will have to begin by improving the working environment for nursing. "

http://www.ANA.org

The ANA is the national POLITICAL arm. The CMAs are the local state associations, & are part of IT, working at the state level.

We refer to them separately but they are all working together following a master plan developed & collaborated on by the CMAs together & set into motion by the ANA (the parent organization of the CMAs). There is a legislative agenda & blueprint that we are following in 54 state associations (including DC & the US Virgin Isles) & we are making a lot of progress state by state, while the ANA works on Capitol Hill with the same plan at the national level. The ANA & CMAs (SNAs) BETTER be taking credit for all of it because we are out there putting it all in place, leading the way & getting it done. There are other groups working in conjunction but the ANA is at the helm. The state legislations are being written by us, the federal legslations have our input & the ANA has written some of those. We are the ones working on the elected officials to get them to pass them into law. I didnt see you in Washington DC the week I was there all over Capitol Hill. When this crisis is alleviated, damn straight you can give us the credit & thank us too. Just think..... a mere 10% of the nations nurses will have pulled it off. But thats not important. The important thing is it will have been done.

Legislation that is part of the nationwide state staffing legislative agenda addressing such issues as nurse staffing, needlestick legislation, interstate nurse compacts, nurse practice acts, advanced practice nurses, state licensing reform initiatives, EMT scope of practice, first assistants in surgery, physician collective bargaining and other workplace issues is handled by the CMA at (state associations of the ANA) the state level:

Prohibition of Mandatory Overtime (safe staffing legislation component)

Introduced in CA, CT, HI, IL, ME, MD, MN, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, WA, WV

Whistleblower Protection

Introduced in HI, IL, MO, NY, OR, RI Passed in WV

Collection and Public Reporting of Nursing Quality Indicators (staffing by acuity legislation component)

Introduced in MA, NY, OR

Mandatory Development and Implementation of Valid and Reliable Nurse Staffing Systems (safe staffing legislation component)

Introduced in IL, ME, NY, OH, OR, PA

Collection of Nursing Workforce Data (safe staffing legislation component)

Introduced in GA, HI, NM, TN, TX - Passed in MS, ND

Nursing Workforce Studies (safe staffing legislation component))

Introduced in CT, KY, ME Passed in AR, PA, VA, WV

Funding for Nursing Education (recruitment legislation component)

Introduced in CA, IL, ME, MN, NV, NJ, NY, PA, TX Passed in NE, VA

There is so much more. It is all posted over at the Nursing Activism/Politics page here.

So, to get back on topic, once the working conditions are improved, AND incentives for new student's nursing education are in place, we will not to look overseas & steal nurses from other short-staffed countries.

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