Lawmaker seeks P14,000 monthly pay for nurses

MANILA, Philippines - Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara has proposed a standard P14,000 monthly basic salary for nurses in government and private hospitals and similar institutions.

Angara said his Bill 5780 seeks to institute reforms to protect and develop the nursing profession in the country.

He said the minimum base pay of nurses in public and private health and health-related institutions should be in accordance with prevailing salary standards set by law for professionals.

He said his bill also mandates that hospitals and other medical institutions provide incentives and benefits to their nurses.

He said at present, a nurse is receiving a monthly salary of only P5,000 to P7,000 in government and private hospitals. Those working in clinics and small privately owned hospitals are getting P4,000.

Angara said the quantity of Filipino nurses has been inversely proportional to the quality of education provided by nursing schools.

He said when Republic Act 9173 or the Nursing Act of 2002 was enacted into law, there were only 251 nursing schools in the country.

That number has risen to 491 schools, many of which are underperforming and are operating only for profit, he said.

He revealed that from 2000 to 2010, there were 2,668,046 enrollees in nursing schools nationwide with only 491,900 graduates, of whom 365,625 passed the nursing licensure examinations.

He pointed out that the licensure examination results show an alarming decline in the annual national passing percentage.

“It reached an all-time low of 35.2 percent in the December 2010 exam, with only 29,711 passers out of 84,287 examinees,” he added.

“We have an oversupply of nurses and yet we are still far from achieving the ideal nurse to patient ratio of 1:4 per shift. The Philippine General Hospital has a nurse to patient ratio of 1:15-26 per shift while Davao del Sur has a province-wide ratio of 1:44-45 per shift. Clearly, there is an urgent need for reforms,” Angara stressed.

Other congressmen have filed bills prohibiting government and private hospitals and clinics from collecting any fee from nurses training in these institutions.