Demand for Filipino nurses abroad drops

Demand for Filipino nurses abroad has significantly declined despite the boom in the global medical industry.

Engr. Oscar A. Tuason, the administrator of Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital revealed that demand for Filipino nurses in foreign hospitals abroad has declined and this can be attributed to the worsening quality of our new graduates.

Aside from the controversies on diploma mills in the country, Tuason discussed that there are actually four reasons that resulted to the decreasing demand for nurses abroad.

He said that new generations of nurses from the country are considered by many foreign hospitals as “unskilled and inexperienced” even in simple clinical procedures because they have gone right out of school without proper training and ample experience.

The other reason is the so-called “attitude problem” since these “new generation” nurses have been pushed into the profession by their parents thinking that it can be their investment in the future.

The third reason given by the foreign hospitals according to Tuason is that new generation nurses do not have commitment with the profession. There have been reported cases wherein some nurses takes offers from hospitals even if they already have signed existing deals with other hospitals.

The last reason and the most pressing one according to Tuason is the inefficiency of some of these new generation nurses with the English language as they do not speak good English understandable by foreign patients.

He said that this notion could have resulted from the worsening education system in the country and the brain drain as even academic institutions are loosing their tenured teaching personnels.

“The global demand for nurses has not decline. But the demand for our Filipino nurses in America and in UK has declined because of these main strikes against our Filipino nurses,” Tuason said.

Although Filipino nurses coming in from Singapore, Australia, Canada and other destinations are still accepted in the States and in UK because their exposure to the nursing profession and their skills are already assured, said Tuason.

This is also the reason why some new nurses are venturing into other markets before they go to Europe and the United States so they can again easy access.

But in some of these destinations such as Middle East, some Filipino nurses are not treated accordingly because some of the working conditions there are not very professional.

But aside from this glaring news, Tuason also reported that decline of enrollees for the nursing courses.

He said that CDU as well as other schools have registered a drop in enrollment in the past semesters.

Since last year, he said that they have already noticed this “downtrend” but it was this year that they have really felt it.

He said that the drop is up to five to eight percent in some schools while to some it has gone up to as high as 20 percent.