Not just Philippine Doctors.................

[mtreyes]

Opinion (as of 6:50 AM)

Understanding a multidisciplinary brain drain

SUNDAY STORIES

By MARLEN V. RONQUILLO

The overall health sector environment is discouraging, as messy as the comfort rooms in most government-run hospitals and as impoverished as the hospital linen. Ours is probably the only Asian country with an almost ruthless disdain toward its health sector and its health workers.

Marcial trained at San Beda in the mid-eighties to be in politics. There was no other career choice. Politics was his passion, his life. He promptly joined the staff of a prominent senator after graduation, starting out as a young, earnest aide, then moving up to more senior posts.

He covered most of the country in the three campaigns he was in; foreign travels took him to the US and elsewhere. He had lived his dreams so to speak. But three years ago, at age 30 plus, he made a decision that was totally unexpected. He quit his Senate job and the world of politics to go back to school. Today he is a nurse and, soon, he would be leaving permanently for the US.

The unstoppable exodus of the country’s nurses, which the World Health Organization (WHO) fears could wreck the country’s health infrastructure, has not really been pictured in its disastrous scope and breadth. This is probably one of the few problems that the media have kept understated. The problem is not confined to career nurses who leave and abandon the country’s health infrastructure for good. The brightest young men and women from other professions have been shifting to nursing—also to leave for good.

Engineers, accountants, IT experts, doctors and even political operatives like Marcial no longer think twice about going through a capping ceremony and doing hospital rounds to be a nurse, not as a nurse in our dilapidated, run-down state hospitals or the plushy private ones that charge high but pay its workers low but a nurse in foreign hospitals.

The powerful lure of nursing—and where nursing could take an ambitious and bright young man or woman—has attracted the best and the brightest from other disciplines and professions as well. What is being sapped is not only the precious manpower resource in the crucial health profession. The attraction of nursing has in reality been resulting in a multidisciplinary brain drain.

But then, why should they remain here and not seek pastures elsewhere? Good question.

There is no incentive to remain here, only a long list of disincentives. The country is an economic basket case and, politically, it is nearing the status of a banana republic. As to the status of its culture and the arts, you are reminded of Mencken’s description of the state of arts, culture and general enlightenment in America’s Deep South. Routinely, we are described in the foreign media as corrupt, violent, ungovernable. Earnings from our human exports outpace the earnings from other exports and the yearly foreign direct investments.

This is a sad, dirty, pathetic country, struggling and hurting while most of Asia is enjoying an unprecedented boom.

What about the pay, the compensation? Ruth Padilla, the dedicated nurse-wife of former Rep. Caloy Padilla, probably had logged more lobbying hours than Tom de Lay’s friends, but still she was not able to convince the budget people to implement a law that grants nurses in government hospitals and centers a meager minimum pay of P13,000 a month. From 2002 to 2004 Mrs. Padilla buttonholed every budget official she knew with a very just and timely appeal—please implement the new pay level for state nurses.

The few times I saw Mrs. Padilla, there was always frustration, even anger, written on her face. You can understand the frustration. Why can’t the budget people give money to increase the pay of nurses by a bit when we can squander billions in the name of profligacy and. corruption?

It makes no sense—a government that cannot even grant its nurses the equivalent of a survival pay scale. To think that these are the same nurses who are offered impossible perks and pay in US hospitals, starting with signing bonuses that can go as high as $50,000.

Don’t blame the nurses who leave and leave for good. This is, after all, a sad country whose level of health investment is not even 1 percent of the country’s GNP. The overall health sector environment is discouraging, as messy as the comfort rooms in most government-run hospitals and as impoverished as the hospital linen. Ours is probably the only Asian country with an almost ruthless disdain toward its health sector and its health workers.

[mtreyes]

What can we do? this is really sad

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Sign on bonuses of up to $50,000???????????????

p.s. You are only supposed to put a few sentences and then link your article, not print the entire article. :)

[nrswnabee]

Sign on bonuses of up to $50,000???????????????

p.s. You are only supposed to put a few sentences and then link your article, not print the entire article. :)

----

haven't heard of that, too. maybe the author mixed up his facts figures....should have been 50k salary or 5k sign on bonus.

[nrswnabee]

the author missed out on sign bonus but he was right on the spot about everything else:

"But then, why should they remain here and not seek pastures elsewhere? ......There is no incentive to remain here, only a long list of disincentives."

[mtreyes]

the author missed out on sign bonus but he was right on the spot about everything else:

"But then, why should they remain here and not seek pastures elsewhere? ......There is no incentive to remain here, only a long list of disincentives."

yeah maybe typo error

[pinayfl]

----

haven't heard of that, too. maybe the author mixed up his facts figures....should have been 50k salary or 5k sign on bonus.

Yes there is a 50K sign on bonus, few months ago someone we know is recruiting nurses to Texas with a 50K sign on bonus. Not sure if they actually got nurses to sign and move to Texas.

[nrswnabee]

Yes there is a 50K sign on bonus, few months ago someone we know is recruiting nurses to Texas with a 50K sign on bonus. Not sure if they actually got nurses to sign and move to Texas.

------------

tks, pinayfl

someone just told me it occured a few years back. it turned out to be not as sweet deal as it appeared. some didn't stay on. sorry to have doubted the article's content.

[suzanne4, RN]

Rule 1: Any time that there is a huge bonus being paid, there is something wrong with the facility, and they are having trouble attracting staff. Most of these have been on the Mexican border, and all leave very quickly.

Rule 2: If it is paid as a bonus; a big chunk will be going for taxes, you definitely will not see it.

Rule 3: Provide link only, and a few sentences. Not the entire article. Please edit.

[pinayfl]

Sounds too good to be true, right? it's probably is..We talked to several nurses and they did not take the chance.

[tagamargos]

Rule 1: Any time that there is a huge bonus being paid, there is something wrong with the facility, and they are having trouble attracting staff. Most of these have been on the Mexican border, and all leave very quickly.

Rule 2: If it is paid as a bonus; a big chunk will be going for taxes, you definitely will not see it.

Rule 3: Provide link only, and a few sentences. Not the entire article. Please edit.

SO TRUE...

Came from there (but worked at a different hospital). So many filipino nurses from east coast relocated to this TX city (down south, near mexico border, actually 20 minutes brings you to the border). You won't be that homesick though because because of the Filipino population. Most Filipino artists go there to perform, they have their own Sinulog, etc... they even jokingly call that hospital "makati med".

But, as what ms suzanne wrote, nurse-patient ration is terrible. Telemetry nurse has 6-9 patients! . $50,000 bonus to work 4 years (a lot did not finish their contract). And they don't pay u in full, they pay staggard to the point that you can't appreciate it anymore after tax...