Importing nurses from the Phillipines

Nurses Activism

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NancyRN

222 Posts

Just what nurses need: ANOTHER dividing factor!

Gomer

415 Posts

It's not a race thing, not a nationality thing, not even a dividing thing. Simply put, if hospitals spent half the monies they spend on recruitment (foreign & domestic) -- including sign-on bonuses & retention bonuses -- to educate/train new nurses we might not have this "foreign" nurse question.

Tenet System just sent 8 of their recruiters to Great Britian, Scotland, Ireland. Each hospital got between 18-20 nurses. Those nurses will be ready to work in about 2 years, when they get their Green Cards (and some still have to take/pass Boards). Cost? About $20,000 each. How many US citizens could be put through 2-yr RN schools for that amount? (18 foreign nurses x 8 hospitals x $20,000 = $2,880,000.00).

OzNurse69

245 Posts

I agree with your sentiments, Gomer, and think it will be a long time before the revolving door that is the worldwide nursing shortage comes to an end. However, realistically, I think it would cost the US government way more than $20,000 per student to put them through nursing school. Don't know the exact figures though, does anyone else have any idea??

-jt

2,709 Posts

They could go to any nursing program in the large NYC city university system for less than $5,000/yr. (as most NYC RNs have done). Or any nursing program in the New York State University system for about $8,000/yr. Its just a little more per year if not a NY state resident. $20,000 would be more than enough to finance their 2 yr nursing education here.

OzNurse69

245 Posts

Really??!! I just would have thought it would have cost more than that - have to do a bit more research next time. I know over here the students pay about $4000 per year, but the University/government subsidises the students a lot more than they actually pay.

-jt

2,709 Posts

Really??? Those countries are facing their own nursing shortages & our hospitals are over there luring more of them away?? In which state is this hospital system that did this?

fergus51

6,620 Posts

Are there any sites proving that it would be cheaper to train American RNs and get them to work? With companies main focus being the bottom line, I find it hard to believe that they would choose to spend more money than they have to doing anything. If someone can point out any litterature, it would certainly be a great addition to any letter to politicians or newspapers.

-jt

2,709 Posts

In the long run, it probably would be a better investment. The ANA & our unions have all that data somewhere, Im sure. But it probably would be more expensive in the short term because the hospitals would first have to spend money to increase the number of seats in the nursing programs that they have spent years downsizing, cutting, & closing. Then theyd have to increase the educators compensation to attract instructors to teach all these new students because there is a shortage of those since the pay is so poor. In effect, the hospitals are complaining about a situation which they created despite 10 yrs of warnings from nurses that this would happen, & now they dont want to spend the money to fix what they caused.

The Nurse Reinvestment Act is a new federal law that will defray these costs with grants from the government but Congress is taking its sweet time appropriating the $250 million in funds to get the law off & running making those improvements to get more students started. So in the short run, its probably just easier for the US administrators to let somebody else overseas pay for, educate, & train nursing students - & then go in there & steal the profit of that other country's investment right out from under its nose.

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AP/Hartford Courant, Oct. 7, 2002

Associated Press

http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-nursing1007.artoct07,0,4656615.story?coll=hc%2Dheadlines%2Dlocal

NEW HAVEN -- A nursing shortage has medical centers across the state looking overseas for help.

Hospitals have sent nursing recruitment teams to the Philippines, Canada, Ireland and Scotland seeking well-trained nurses eager to relocate to the United States for jobs that offer higher pay and more respect.

Jeramy Tabuzo, 31, came from the Philippines to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She arrived last year, a few months after her husband, Bien Tabuzo, also a nurse, relocated from the United Arab Emirates to Connecticut to take a job at Bridgeport Hospital.

"In the Philippines, our newspapers are filled with advertisements for U.S. nursing jobs," Jeramy Tabuzo told the New Haven Register.

A rental house that Yale sought out for the Tabuzos and their 3-year-old son was ready for the family to move into within days of her arrival, and Bien Tabuzo relocated to Yale-New Haven Hospital a short time later.

Tabuzo and other foreign nurses are all required to take several exams before they can practice in the United States. The Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools administers an exam to prove nursing experience. And to practice in Connecticut, nurses must take another test, the National Council Licensure Exam, to obtain a state nursing license.

Nurses must already have obtained a bachelor's degree in nursing and have a license to practice in their native country. They also must take a mandatory written, oral and English reading proficiency exam, and a visa screening process is done to verify that all the tests have been passed and requirements have been fulfilled.

Ken Roberts, spokesman for the Connecticut Hospital Association, said statistics for 2001, the most recent data available, indicated that an average of 11.6 percent of nursing jobs at hospitals and health care centers were vacant.

That compares with a 7.6 percent vacancy rate in allied health care professions, including pharmacists and various medical technologists.

"Some of the more specialized areas have more acute shortages because of the training requirements," Roberts said.

He said the numbers for 2002, which have not been released, are not much different from 2001.

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Gardengal :

Maybe you can contact Yale-New Haven Hospital to see how their program worrking. Website: http://www.ynhh.org/

Gomer

415 Posts

Tenet hospitals in California sent the recruiters -jt. A friend of mine just got back. She got 18 RN's and had alot of fun (at the company's expense) doing it.

-jt

2,709 Posts

Damn amazing, isnt it?

I recently read an article that bragged that Tenet had made millions in profits last year & is doing so well that its building a 10 story tower of new pt rooms and claimed it "will have no trouble filling those beds". I wrote the editor & asked but how are they planning to fill the 10 stories worth of nurses stations with enough RNs to care for all those new pts cause there is no mention in the article about RNs at all & Ca is having one of the worst RN shortages in the nation. I never heard back from him, but I guess you just answered my question.

Rolli

1 Post

I was wondering does anyone have experience with korean nurses? What do they think of them? This is not advertisement but I am having trouble talking to health care providers. They ignore my email.

I am trying to send NCLEX-Rn's to America for work but no one is responding. Is this normal?

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