140,000 Filipino nurses took US exam since 1995
MANILA, Philippines -- More than 140,000 Filipino nursing graduates have taken the NCLEX since 1995, in the hopes of obtaining employment in the United States, a lawmaker said.
Citing statistics from America’s National Council of State Boards of Nursing Inc. (NCSBN), Rep. Arnel Ty of the party-list LPG/MA said a total of 140,451 Filipino nursing graduates took the US licensure exam for the first time in the 15 years from 1995 to the first quarter of 2011.
“Based on our review of the data, we reckon that at least 60 percent of Filipino nursing graduates those who took the NCLEX for the first time eventually qualified to enter US nursing profession, if not on their first attempt, on their second take of the US licensure exam,” Ty said.
Ty has been pushing for new legislation that would establish a special local jobs plan for the growing number of unemployed Filipino nurses.
As proposed by Ty in House Bill 4582, the jobs plan would be an expanded version of the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service (NARS), the short-lived Philippine government project that enlisted 10,000 nurses to improve healthcare in the 1,000 poorest towns in 2009.
The number of Filipino nursing graduates taking the NCLEX for the first time, excluding repeaters, is considered a good indicator as to how many of them are trying to enter the profession in the US.
Ty said Filipinos now comprise the largest group of foreign-educated nurses in America, ahead of those who graduated from India, South Korea, Canada, Nigeria, Cuba, and the United Kingdom.
Still, Ty urged the Philippine government to push for the opening of new foreign labor markets outside of America for the tens of thousands of jobless Filipino nurses at home.
He said Filipino nursing graduates could no longer count on the US labor market for jobs.
“On the supply side, America on its own has been producing an increasing number of nurses. In 2010 alone, US schools produced a total of 167,597 nursing graduates, 26 percent or 34,410 more than the 133,187 that they produced in 2006,” Ty pointed out.
As to the demand side, he said it has been slow to pick up in light of continued cutbacks in American hospital and nursing home subsidies at the federal, state and municipal levels.
Ty’s bill seeks to install a Special Program for the Employment of Nurses in Urban and Rural Services (NURSE), which would deliver additional healthcare to depressed towns in the countryside as well as informal settlements in urban areas.
The program would provide gainful employment to nurses while developing their competencies.
It hopes to mobilize a total of 10,000 nurses every year, with each practitioner serving a six-month tour of duty. They would get a monthly stipend not lower than the amount commensurate to Salary Grade 15, the higher starting pay for public nurses mandated by a 2002 law.The program would be directed, managed and administered jointly by the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Health, and the Professional Regulation Commission, in consultation with the Board of Nursing.Nurses engaged under the program must not be over 35 years old, and must have a valid license.
