Volunteer Nurses: Counted as a Work Experience?

elkpark · Aug 19, 2009

Agreed which is why I consistently encourage prospective nurses to look at the PRC statistics and choose schools which routinely rank with high numbers of local board passers.
Some universities here only get 10-15% of their graduates to pass local boards while others are passing at 80-90%.
Unfortunately with the government corruption as high as it is in RPH; CHED (the governing body of higher education) has no teeth to enforce any sort of standards among universities.
Ultimately it will come down to PNA deciding to stop straddling the fence and actually endorse quality levels to take things out of the hands of an inept and uncaring government.
PNA may not be able to shut down the bad schools, but if they establish a level of quality for thier own endorsement then prospective nurses could just look for PNA certification before deciding to study in a certain school.
Unfortunately the high levels of poverty also have a lot to play. Many nurses WANT the best education but end up having to settle with whatever they can afford and hope that they can work hard enough to be among the 10% that actually pass from that school.

I am sorry that there is so much corruption and such poor working and living conditions in the PI, but the citizens of the PI could change that if they really wanted to and worked together (instead of focusing all their time and energy on leaving for a lucrative job in another country). Working conditions and educational standards are what they are in the US because people have worked and fought for them, and refused to tolerate less.

badbach66 · Aug 20, 2009

I think the government should increase funding for gov't hospitals so that they would have the resources to hire more nurses here. Plus, admission to nursing schools nowadays should be limited until the thousands of unemployed nurses here find a job. There's too much of a surplus of nurses here, & adding more to it just makes the problem worse.

RichLovina · Aug 21, 2009

I know a lot of Nurses in the Philippines are doing volunteer works just to satisfy the Nursing Board's requirements in their country of destination.
In relation to this, i've known a friend who is a nurse in the philippines who told me that the PNA will Ban volunteer nurses from the hospital or any facilities...
In the State of Victoria, Australia, volunteer work experience is not accepted as a work experience, unless you are in a registered capacity while doing it.
How about in other countries are they going to count it? and the Banning of volunteer nurses by the PNA, do you think this could help? what would be the solution for this?
say your thoughts...thanks.

In all Australian States & Territories, volunteer nursing does NOT count as work experience when applying to register as an RN. It will be a useful notation on a good resume prior to gaining paid work experience with your RN qualification being used for such work. It only stands to reason in any profession to have such a standard.

killjoyako · Aug 23, 2009

u pay just to volunteer? i've heard in some hospitals like east avenue who allow volunteer work for RNs but i dont think they make u pay. what for? thats abuse already.;

RichLovina · Aug 23, 2009

Regretfully you are misunderstanding. I am only talking about RNS who are employed, recruited to work. 'Volunteer work' of any kind is not considered real work. The work 'paid' means 'employed' in the normal sense, nothing to do with any unscrupulous organisation which may charge for volunteer experience.

Hushdawg · Aug 24, 2009

u pay just to volunteer? i've heard in some hospitals like east avenue who allow volunteer work for RNs but i dont think they make u pay. what for? thats abuse already.;

Yes it is abusive and yet many hospitals in the Philippines still make nurses pay to get "training" which basically means the hospital makes money off them both directly and indirectly.

It is terrible and nobody is doing anything to stop it.

chiaren · Aug 24, 2009

Yes it is abusive and yet many hospitals in the Philippines still make nurses pay to get "training" which basically means the hospital makes money off them both directly and indirectly.
It is terrible and nobody is doing anything to stop it.

Yes, because nurses, especially the new ones, continue to join those so-called "trainings" and pay hospitals whatever fees they demand just so they can have a "feel" of how it is to actually work in a hospital, to re-learn their skills after months of just reviewing theories for NLE, and because they hope that maybe by volunteering, the hospital might offer them a paid position eventually. So there, this "volunteering" business will never end if nurses will continue to pay just so they can "volunteer." I guess it's up to the nursing organizations, PRC or the government now. They should come up with a bill or something.

cebuana_nurse · Aug 25, 2009

I agree. I was once a volunteer nurse.

I volunteered for 6 months and was hired from the same hospital I was in to be a part of the staff for 3 months.

All hospitals in Cebu are making profit from it to the fact that they accept 30 newly-registered nurses every 3 months and collect PhP 200-350 from each of them for the whole training. Duty per day as a volunteer nurse when I was starting was 12 hours then we begged them to change it into 8 hours since we get so tired and stressed and we don't make money from it. We even actually spend more money, coming to duty every other day, commuting and food. It wasn't a really good idea but I wanted to learn skills and be confident that I could care for my patients.

When in fact that if there are less patients in the hospitals, volunteer nurses have nothing else to do but lounge on their areas of duty. They won't learn anything. At least the hospital that I was in realized that there are too many nurses applying to be volunteer nurses in the hospital that they may even be mistaken as patients. Sometimes, they lost us attend various seminars which are around Php 200-500 per person, though it's not compulsory. But they would try to talk you about it and you'll change your mind. Well some did. I wasn't one of them.

I hope the PNA would do some measures of regulating how many volunteer nurses a hospital could accept and how much money they would collect per training.

Hushdawg · Aug 25, 2009

So there, this "volunteering" business will never end if nurses will continue to pay just so they can "volunteer." I guess it's up to the nursing organizations, PRC or the government now. They should come up with a bill or something.

This is why nurses in the Philippines should band together and use organizations like Ang Nars or the PNA to pressure the politicians as a large group. Spread the word and convince nurses to STOP DOING IT.

It will be hard, it will take sacrifice but in the end the hospitals will be forced to do what is right and PAY NURSES instead of being paid BY the nurses.

I know average nurse salary is pretty low, recent numbers show that it is around 7-8K per month; but that can be changed too.

It's going to take a lot of cooperation from every nurse in the Philippines to get the change, put politicians in place that will help nurses rather than business and make bills that will work for the people again.

I've gone over labor code changes for the last 10 years and there are many more changes that benefit businesses than benefit employees. This tells me that nobody sitting in office now gives a damn about the nurses and Pinoys should vote them all out of office.

medic8 · Aug 26, 2009

Yes it is abusive and yet many hospitals in the Philippines still make nurses pay to get "training" which basically means the hospital makes money off them both directly and indirectly.
It is terrible and nobody is doing anything to stop it.

Boycott!!! there are many nursing jobs out there, though most of them are in the occupational health setting, it's still nursing experience. Don't be close-minded. There are other fields of nursing waiting out there for us.

Hushdawg · Aug 27, 2009

Boycott!!!

I absolutely agree. Pinoy nurses should boycott this kind of abuse and not participate in the "pay for traning" scams that hospitals are running. Volunteering is one thing, paying to volunteer is another entirely.

there are many nursing jobs out there, though most of them are in the occupational health setting, it's still nursing experience. Don't be close-minded. There are other fields of nursing waiting out there for us.

I wish that were true for Pinoy nurses, but unfortunately when they work to achieve career goals they are hit with the "stay in your own damn country" attitude that you can see elsewhere on the boards here.

The Philippines has a surplus of nurses because of the nursing culture that has developed over the bulk of the 20th century. USA and European nations as well as the Middle East have demanded nurses from the Philippines for generations, then all of the sudden that demand was shut off from many sources leaving tens of thousands of nurses unemployed that would normally have gotten jobs without a problem.

LadyHazy · Aug 27, 2009

I am a new nurse training at a private hospital in Mindanao. I paid a small amount for two months of training, which also includes IV therapy training and (once I complete my cases :)) licensure. After our training, the hospital shall absorb us trainees (or the best of us, at least) to fill in the vacant nursing positions ( :crosses fingers to get the position at the ICU: ) so I don't feel so bad about my status.

Volunteerism in itself is a good thing. But I've always thought that volunteerism is done out of willingness to serve others, not for the self-serving purpose of getting job experience for the almighty $$$, otherwise you end up with "volunteers" who don't want to be working here at all.

I do agree that this sort of "volunteerism" is a huge problem. I believe that it is not only an issue of "slave labor", but a reflection of the sorry state of nursing in the Philippines. We wouldn't be in this situation, after all, if we didn't allow it to happen. There are simply too many of us Filipino nurses and not enough health care institutions to take us in so new nurses get desperate and offer their hard earned skills for free (otherwise, they'd stay idle and rot). Remember the Law of Supply and Demand? When the supply exceeds the demand, there is a surplus and the price of the commodity decreases.

Well, congratulations! The supply of Pinoy RNs has just exceeded the demand so much that the value of the new RN has just dropped down to zero (negative, even, in some cases including mine >.>)! Damn, how hard did I work and how much did I pay for my license again?

Bottom line is that RNs should be fairly compensated. And if we must volunteer, we should be doing it because we want to, not because it's our only choice. So what can we do to achieve that? Well, I believe we could start by trimming out poorly performing nursing schools (RA 9173's standards for nursing schools are horribly low IMO ), banning hospitals from accepting volunteers, increase the quality of nursing care we give, increase nurses' salaries, and simply speak out about the issues which surround us every day in the workplace. Now if only the Philippine government ever listened to us...