Emergency Nurse Relief Act 2009- Update

Hushdawg · May 25, 2009

Read what is being said by American Lawyers about US Nurses, basically we are uneducated, not dedicated, and need the help of foreign nurses to function.

That is NOT at all why this bill is being introduced.

The bill is being introduced because there are not enough nurses working in the USA. There are many reasons for this, many factors. NONE of those has anything to do with a negative view on native-born and educated nurses.

The issue is that we have very low nurse to patient ratios in the USA and need nurses desperately, currently the projected graduating nurses for the next three years cannot satisfy the growing needs of nurses in the USA.

Nurses are not a shortage in major metro areas but in rural hospitals and smaller cities it is a crisis.

So many people on this blogsite talk about how there are hiring freezes and no jobs available yet staffing firms are hounded by requests from hospitals all over the country to find them qualified nurses from anywhere!

HippyGreenPeaceChick · May 25, 2009

For those of you who write your congressmen and senators, remember one important thing. The large majority of them are themselves lawyers, or have a legal background.

Hushdawg · May 25, 2009

I don't believe that research has been done, but look at the web site hospital compare, search hospitals where nurses foreign nurses are employed and you will see that patient satisfaction is lower.
Check the NCLEX results, most foreign nurses fail while US nurse pass.

First statement is largely untrue. If it were then how is it that India, Thailand, China and now the Philippines have a large and growing medical tourism industry?

Also, the negative satisfactions are in government hospitals where the nurse-patient ratio is incredibly low. Low as in 1 nurse to 50-100 patients.

So what if NCLEX is failed by foreign nurses? What does that prove really? NCLEX was designed for American nursing program graduates.

No nurse can work in the USA until he or she passes NCLEX, takes English Proficiency and has his/her credentials evaluated so that means any imported nurses will be on the same level as an NCLEX passer from the USA.

Hushdawg · May 25, 2009

Point is the majority of the foreign educated nurses are coming from third world countries where nursing out comes are poor.

That is a very xenophobic statement. I'm shocked to see you using such an argument.

Let's look at nursing education in the Philippines.

Yes, a large number of the universities here are factories.

However, there are several very high quality universities which have programs developed by US and European universities. These 4 year programs provide a higher quality of education than the remaining 70% of the schools in PH and higher than about 20% of the schools in the USA.

These are the schools which produce nurses that pass local boards on the first try and go on to pass NCLEX.

Some of these nurses become teachers and stay here, many continue on to the USA or other countries.

THESE are the nurses that you are going to see walk through the doors of your hospital with jobs.

The top of the class.

The best of the best.

When you take NCLEX in the USA then you take within a few months of graduating college.

Foreign nurses don't have that luxury.

Most are put into a cycle of delay because of the long process in getting eligibility compounded by the delay in getting the local license (local boards are only twice a year in the Philippines, once a year in most other countries). This means that the average nurse is taking NCLEX more than a year after graduating college.

According to NCSBN statistics only 40% of those people are able to pass NCLEX.

I think it is a testament to the Filipino nurse that they are slowly beating NCSBN statistics.

You judge against a foreign nurse because of poor quality schools.

Yet you fail to realize that they are having to outweigh greater odds than you to even get a chance to sit for an interview to be hired at your hospital.

Try to think more rationally and avoid xenophobia.

Hushdawg · May 25, 2009

Also I don't think the NCLEX is a true evaluation of a nurses education, I feel Americans should adopt a competency evaluation process and or a bridging program to verify a foreign nurse's education.

They already do that when they are hired by the US hospital. The US hospital puts them through a program.

This is also one of the flaws with privatized healthcare.

If we went to Universal Healthcare then we could easily adopt the program that has been working so well in UK, Australia and New Zealand where an immigrant nurse must complete a 6-month course under a tourist visa in order to then become licensed in the country and work in healthcare.

If there is a going to be shortage of nurses shouldn't Americans be considered first?

That is the very problem of the growing nurse shortage.

The average age of a practicing nurse right now in the USA is 56years.

That means a LOT of working nurses are going to be retiring soon and the US nursing education system cannot produce the nurses needed to fill positions fast enough. It was estimated that if EVERY SINGLE out of work auto worker took up nursing education NOW and ALL of them became licensed that there still would be a shortage 3-4 times that number by the time they all graduated.

The shortage is a ticking clock. The economic slump drove more people to take up nursing because it is seen as a stable occupation, however it is still not enough.

lawrence01 · May 25, 2009

But if you go to other non nursing sites, American nurses are being portrayed and being selfish and that even though we work in the field we do not understand that there is a nursing shortage right now.
The point that I am trying to make, as nurses we do not know how to play the political system. Do you think the immigration lawyers care about nursing practice ? No, they are more concerned about making money from the paperwork they can process for the foreign nurses.
The sad thing is the foreign nurses believe that they are desperately needed here in the USA. I feel there intentions are honorable but they are getting encouragement from people who are trying to make a living by importing them to the USA.

I have just read the whole blog you are referring to from the very start. It seems that you, using multiple usernames on that blog instigated the whole thing by calling foreign educated nurses as inferior.

And you cry when people try to defend them? What crap are your trying to pull?

It's also very easy to conclude that you are the same person who is trolling that site and instigating things like you do here at allnurses.com.

You keep using the same xenophobic, ignorant lines from the past year or so. It was very easy to conclude that you are the same person. What were you doing there anyway?

And how thick face can you get by bashing foreign educated nurses in such a thread and bashing the immigration lawyer (and therefore all immigration lawyers as well) who authored it on his own blog site.

Of course, he will defend himself because unlike you he uses his actual name and does not hide by a username or hide on being anonymous.

And by the way the debate/discussion that went there other commentators seems to be more knowledgeable than you are.

Furthermore, they back up what they say unlike you that can't even stick with one story (nor stick with one username).

P.S. Hope you don't make an excuse that it's not you there. It's very obvious, specially that you are obviously trying hard to bring it over here and trying to turn the tables on him and hope no one actually reads the whole comments from the beginning and just read the last few new ones.

Bidwillty · May 25, 2009

Everyone needs to remember, if there were enough american nurses working or being educated there would not be the need to hire foreign nurses. We are here to supplement an apparent shortage and we pay taxes, license fees, do nclex, do and english exam, which I find ludicrous since many of us are trained in english and english is our first language. Dont categorise all foreign nurses, some of us have a lot of knowledge to share.

Hushdawg · May 25, 2009

Bidwillty, would you hazard a guess as to how many foreign nurses seek citizenship in the USA?

Approximately 70-80% of all foreigners working in the USA achieve citizenship.

So much for "not giving back to the US economy" argument.

We are a nation of immigrants. I don't want to hear any anti-immigration rhetoric unless the person speaking is a native tribe member.

Oddly I've never heard any native tribe member speak against immigration, and they are the ones who have the most right.

VICEDRN, BSN, RN · May 25, 2009

My goodness I can practically hear the US national anthem being hummed in the background while reading these posts.
How exactly are you defining American?
Why would a European country hire someone who is not fluent in their language? After all we require that people have excellent command of English (I should say American English).
Why would a foreign country hire a nurse with a two year degree? The UK is 3 years for a diploma and four for a degree. Also, they have a longer school year than us. Further, the entire degree or diploma or degree is related to nursing (no fun little history of art, or women's studies electives).
How precisely does someone benefit culturally from having an "American nurse"? Does that mean my Kenyan friend can get a Kenyan nurse? I have a Swedish neighbor what about him?My Irish mother had a Filipino nurse just a few weeks ago -- thank goodness she didn't suffer (by the way this nurse was possibly the best nurse I have EVER observed at that hospital).
Incidentally, I suspect your BONs, undoubtedly made up of American nurses, have the same white papers on this subject as mine. Please go educate yourselves before you start banging on about this anti-foreigner stuff and see why they are concerned about nursing numbers.
Aging population, aging nursing workforce, aging faculty with NOT enough qualified nurses in the pipeline to manage the numbers nor enough facilities to get them qualified.
Also, whoever judges the number of nurses needed by the number of available jobs in their area...well...it is just silly to extrapolate the nursing needs of these United States from your little corner of it.
Your lively-hood isn't going to be "taken away" by in-sourcing. What a load of xenophobic tosh.

Our version of fluency does not even come close to what Europe requires of us. In Germany, you have to speak German with practically no accent. Americans say that you either had to be raised by a German or spent your childhood living there.

You used the word "tosh" so my guess is you come from the British Isles and so does my mother. I am no fool on this subject. Europeans should be last in line to call anyone xenophobic when they think we should protect jobs for our own countrymen first. :angryfire

Please! Go sell that to someone else! :angryfire

My "little corner" of the US has the same problems that friends of mine in other parts of the country have and to be frank, it really doesn't take much to google and discover the plethora of articles talking about the lack of a nursing shortage in any part of the country.

I have no idea how you can defend the assertion that in-sourcing won't take away jobs from Americans. Unless every single American is employed, I see no reason to admit foreigners to do the job. Again, there are plenty of registered nurses. If employers were desperate, they would try harder to attract them back to the bedside. These folks simply refuse to work under those conditions or they are at home with their families or moved into another role that isn't at the bedside. They would come back under the right conditions. Plain and simple.

American hospitals and colleges would find enough American nurses to fill those jobs if they needed to but in-sourcing is easier and more cost effective. All of this assumes that there becomes a real need, as opposed to a predicted need for nurses. Who knows? They may reformat and we end up with fewer nurses working with more CNA/PCTs and EMTs. What should we say then? Should we say "oops"?

I didn't miss your sarcasm either. I am delighted your mother received excellent care but if your neighbor is dreadfully concerned about finding a Kenyan or Swedish nurse then they should return to the country where they are most likely to run into those nurses. Otherwise, I am afraid they are left with the folks we have here.

I define American broadly: people who are here now and are legally here.

Ginger's Mom, MSN, RN · May 25, 2009

That is a very xenophobic statement. I'm shocked to see you using such an argument.
Let's look at nursing education in the Philippines.
Yes, a large number of the universities here are factories.
However, there are several very high quality universities which have programs developed by US and European universities. These 4 year programs provide a higher quality of education than the remaining 70% of the schools in PH and higher than about 20% of the schools in the USA.
These are the schools which produce nurses that pass local boards on the first try and go on to pass NCLEX.
Some of these nurses become teachers and stay here, many continue on to the USA or other countries.
THESE are the nurses that you are going to see walk through the doors of your hospital with jobs.
The top of the class.
The best of the best.
When you take NCLEX in the USA then you take within a few months of graduating college.
Foreign nurses don't have that luxury.
Most are put into a cycle of delay because of the long process in getting eligibility compounded by the delay in getting the local license (local boards are only twice a year in the Philippines, once a year in most other countries). This means that the average nurse is taking NCLEX more than a year after graduating college.
According to NCSBN statistics only 40% of those people are able to pass NCLEX.
I think it is a testament to the Filipino nurse that they are slowly beating NCSBN statistics.
You judge against a foreign nurse because of poor quality schools.
Yet you fail to realize that they are having to outweigh greater odds than you to even get a chance to sit for an interview to be hired at your hospital.
Try to think more rationally and avoid xenophobia.

I know you are not a nurse and currently not living in the USA. I live in a community by choice where being white in the minority so I take issue with your name calling.

I would hope some great nurses would rise to the top especially from the top schools. The Philippine nurses need to raise their standards so all nursing schools have the same basic program.

I have always stated nurses should be trained for the country they choose to practice. If a nurse chooses to work in a certain country they should attend school there, that is the most rationale thing. My understanding is that if you were a fully qualified US nurse you would not be employable, shouldn't Americans enjoy the same right?

The issue of medical tourism, these hospitals have made the choice of being accountable to US Health standards by being reviewed by Joint Commission.

Ginger's Mom, MSN, RN · May 25, 2009

Bidwillty, would you hazard a guess as to how many foreign nurses seek citizenship in the USA?
Approximately 70-80% of all foreigners working in the USA achieve citizenship.
So much for "not giving back to the US economy" argument.
We are a nation of immigrants. I don't want to hear any anti-immigration rhetoric unless the person speaking is a native tribe member.
Oddly I've never heard any native tribe member speak against immigration, and they are the ones who have the most right.

Personally, with all the people wanting to come to the USA I would hope the rate seeking citizenship should be over 90%.

So Blacks who came to the USA via slavery have no right to speak on immigration? I thought on a day like today Memorial Day, we should be free to exercise our freedom of speech. I guess all the Americans who have given their lives for America only did that for Native Americans.

Ginger's Mom, MSN, RN · May 25, 2009

For those of you who write your congressmen and senators, remember one important thing. The large majority of them are themselves lawyers, or have a legal background.

That is very true, but they have to be elected. I vote in every election, I know when you call or write they do check to see if you are registered and do vote.