Nursing shortages, Baby boomers and the immigrant nurse Part 2
It has been a couple of weeks since we reviewed the ongoing poll about foreign trained nurses in the USA and the trend towards blaming immigrant nurses for taking the jobs which should or should not belong to American Nurses.
The opinion is almost equally divided between the main two options - please review poll thread for further information.
Now what we really should investigate is when we say 'foreign nurses' who are we really referring to? Are we referring to Green Card holder? Or are we referring to foreign born and trained RN's? Is there a difference I hear you contemplating? Well I could predict that this would alter the opinions because those who are finger pointing may well have Green Cards themselves, even though they have probably lived for most of their lives in the USA, or have parents who remain legal Aliens and not US citizens.
Nobody complains about legal Aliens who are not RN's in the same way yet the majority and I say majority loosely because it is my opinion that almost 100% of nurses in the US are either 'legal aliens' or are already 'US Citizens, the exception these days are some Canadians who are still on working visas.
I am pretty sure somebody will prove me wrong, but hey that is the fun of these blog's and hopefully initiates some good conversation in a safe environment.
It is also my belief that the ones who criticize have no to little complaints against British, Canadian, Australian, and any other English as a first language speaking RN? The main complaints seem to be against Filipinos, Indian, and any RN who has an accent. Ok now I will bow my head and wait!
So I leave you with a thought If you are a Green Card Holder who trains in the US to be a RN, are you taking the jobs from the American Nurses or is this acceptable????
We need to be careful how we judge here. Since immigration is such a hot topic, we are all a bit on edge.
"Foreign nurses" are those that are not citizens AND trained abroad AND do not posses a green card. I think some are confusing a green card holder as that of a foreign nurse.
The migration of nurses started to increase exponentially when the nursing shortage began. We only minded when the job opportunities recently became scarce.
Most of these nurses do not get paid less, but had a heck of a time trying to get into a nursing school in their own country. It is an honor for most of them to be her and they make a considerable amount more her then in their own country, ie: the Philippines
Our government is concerned with the amount of money they are sending back home (sometime in excess of 50% of their income) which takes the money our of our economy and puts it back into their.
On the flip side, nurses that come from Ireland, England, Australia, and even the Philippines are almost always bachelor's prepared and employers who can be choosey are picking them over ADN grads. International Council of Nurses (ICN)
However, although I am not a firm supporter of Obama, he did say "The notion that we would have to import nurses makes absolutely no sense," at a health care summit in March. "There are a lot of people [in the U.S.] who would love to be in that helping profession, and yet we just aren't providing the resources to get them trained--that's something we've got to fix." He added $100 million to the stimulus package to increase nurse educator training.
rashana
40 Posts
I wonder how many hospitals actively recruit nurses from outside the country, and I wonder if they get paid the same amount? Does anyone know?