VSMMC braces for shortage of nurses

CEBU, Philippines -  The Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center will be compelled to hire more contractual nurses following the order of the Department of Health to terminate its “volunteer program for nurses.”

“We have to cope up with the situation,” Eleodoro Mongaya, Jr, VSMMC media liaison officer said yesterday. The hospital is set to terminate the program on Friday.

Mongaya said the termination of volunteer nurses will aggravate the already undermanned public hospital. He said it is expected that they will lack the needed nurses to take care of the patients.

Mongaya however could not provide the figures as to how many volunteer nurses will be affected and how many nurses will be left to take care of the patients at the VSMMC.

Mongaya clarified that what they are offering to nursing graduates is a training program with corresponding training module, not a volunteer program unlike other hospitals in Cebu City.

He said the three-month training program, which can be only availed by registered nurses, has a corresponding fee. The program has been there since VSMMC chief Gerardo Aquino assumed office in 2006.

DOH Secretary Enrique Ona issued a memorandum circular dated August 15, 2011 which ordered the “termination of all nurse volunteer programs, volunteer training programs for nurses and all similar or related programs in all DOH retained hospitals.”

Ona said the current practice of registered nurses “volunteering in hospitals to gain ‘work experience’ and/or to obtain a certificate of work experience and for purposes of meeting requirement for employment abroad is not consistent with the provisions of Republic Act 9418 or Volunteer Act of 2007.”

“In addition, many hospitals have implemented ‘nurse volunteerism’ in the guise of ‘training programs’ in order to justify the collection of ‘training fees’, whereby such basic skills training puts no added value to the professional career of the nurses,” Ona said.

Ona directed that all hospital-based trainings for nurses should follow a definite career progression to be defined and accredited by the DOH and Professional Regulation Commission – Board of Nursing (BON).

Daisy Palompon, dean of the College of Nursing of the Cebu Normal University, said a reasonable number of registered nurses in CNU will be affected of the order.

She said most of the registered nurses take training programs in order for them to get appropriate experience as a requirement.

Nevertheless, Palompon said, they are also thankful to the DOH for giving the order because lots of nurses are being “exploited” by some hospitals by collecting expensive fees.

“Why are they made to pay? Nga volunteer ra man unta. It’s a sort of exploitation na,” she said.–(FREEMAN)