Nurses Pay Hike Vetoed

[brownie]

---

There are many things i disagree with Pnoy, but he is definitely right on this one. Me (non practicing) and my wife (practicing)are nurses so anyone would think it would be counter intuitive for us to be against the increase in nurses wage. We all want to have higher wages, no doubt. But no matter how we romanticize our work, it could not avoid the consequences of economic forces. Let's try a thought experiment and imagine we can use the LAW to artificially inflate the wages of nurses. What would happen?

It's nice to have someone with good sense.

PRO:
1. higher income for the EMPLOYED nurses (if you will be lucky)
2. Increase employment retention

Ditto.

Con:
1. Hospitals will need to CUT on nursing employment to accommodate the higher wages (Budget is a pain in the a$$) resulting in...
2. lesser nurse to patient ratio
3. limited opportunities for neophyte nurses to acquire experience
4. Price increase in medical bills
5. Hospitals may completely downsize their operations rippling unemployment to other types of hospital staff

Wages should be "controlled" by supply and demand only. At the end of the day, any worker from any industry can always find ways to improve his income. It is his responsibility afterall.

1. Everything has been already accepted, determined, considered and enumerated and lastly budgeted.
2. Status Quo. No more no less.
3. It is part of the transition and not just newbies but the older ones who didn't practice for like more than 3 yrs, will have a hard time entering the health industry but still, I dont consider it a con just so everything else pans out as natural as it can get.
4. Most practicing doctors in a private hospital (from prima to tertiary) are paid by their fellowships and subs and they have stocks. Residents are always on the low side of the scale. Medical bills in privates will remain the same since there are ways to cut off labor charges e.g, gather more volunteers and give COEs and certs to those attendees (COEs will be used as evidence of practice and will be official - recognized domestically).
5. Refer to no. 4.

The supply has always been ascending from 2006 - 2011 and started declining since then because the demand says so. The main problem that I can see with the increase of salary in nurses is the 'mangigi'. This year nursing board takers only totaled a mere 14,000 compared back to the glory years of 78,000 on ave. That is a great drop off and we can safely tell that 4,000 out of the 14,000 are re-takers. For me, it makes sense to increase the salary of the practicing ones right now and I believe it is high time to adjust the minimum requirement to 3 years and at least 80.0 board.

In the previous pages, I wrote something about how to increase one's income, the timetable to get the desired salary is vague but probably no more than 5 years but the bigger pro to that path is that you claim a higher education while gaining hospital experience and maybe spare some Sundays for public outreach.

[Scott Bernard]

Lets start from the very beginning....

1. Sa mga NURSE or currently taking up NURSING... ngano mao man na inyong gepili nga profession?
- Aminin... kay gusto mo molarga ug US, CANADA and other First World Countriles, plus less Mathematics pa... sayon ra kuno.

2. I doubt naay nag nursing kay ang SOLE purpose ganahan sa pilipinas ra mo trabaho.


Concerning sa salary sa nurse locally, I accept the fact nga UNDERPAID ra kaayo nang less than 10K php salary... professionals gud mo. IMHO, 12k-16k starting salary for Fresh Grad nurses are okay. But 20k as starting salary is hard to justify economically. It doesn't add up. Everything runs in Commerce / Business.

[brownie]

Lets start from the very beginning....

1. Sa mga NURSE or currently taking up NURSING... ngano mao man na inyong gepili nga profession?
- Aminin... kay gusto mo molarga ug US, CANADA and other First World Countriles, plus less Mathematics pa... sayon ra kuno.

2. I doubt naay nag nursing kay ang SOLE purpose ganahan sa pilipinas ra mo trabaho.


Concerning sa salary sa nurse locally, I accept the fact nga UNDERPAID ra kaayo nang less than 10K php salary... professionals gud mo. IMHO, 12k-16k starting salary for Fresh Grad nurses are okay. But 20k as starting salary is hard to justify economically. It doesn't add up. Everything runs in Commerce / Business.

I will speak in behalf of the Nurses. Some Nurses who come from a well off family do not wish to go abroad but study Medicine afterwards. Some Nurses who came from impoverished and in between wishes to take flight. And there are these Nurses who loves being a Nurse because of the non-complexity of the profession and most of the passionate ones belong to families with high income and therefore the law must apply to the ones who wishes to stay for good. Believe me or not, some CIs and Nurse Managers are paid in the high 40s some are young others are old.

Nurses in tertiary privates are paid OK, and beyond that, they get paid low. Their chances of getting hired abroad is also low. This is a problem the government has to address thoroughly bec., they never halted the DepED & CHED in acquiring nursing students due perhaps to revenues. Every school offers a Nursing program without a standard curriculum in Nursing practice, add to that, they give false hopes of getting a job outside the Phils which is simply a BAD ADVERTISEMENT to lure students to take up Nursing and so the number of graduates rose dramatically beyond what the demand has demanded worldwide.

The gov't, before increasing the base pay, should also reconsider a standard curriculum and can only be offered by teaching hospitals and Nursing admissions from students limiting only to 2 blocks per year. They ought to change the curriculum by applying a LVN/associate Nursing and BSN for full time Nurse. LVN will have its own registry too while BSN must undergo severe scrutiny on their clerkship years under direct orders of a medical consultant not under resident doctors and add 1 more year for PGI (post graduate internship) and an option for continuing education to specialize eg, theater, emt, gerontology, etc.

The business you are talking about affected only the workforce not the profit of a private hospital and certainly not on the public ones. Nurses do not sell and market tangible products of a hospital and neither are MDs, Radtechs, Medtechs and such.

[Scott Bernard]

To sum it up... the government does not really care if nurses are underpaid because there are too many of you.

Then, I do not firmly believe well off families enroll their children in BS Nursing because it is MANDATORY for Pre-Med. They can take up BS Psych Graduates, BS Bio, Marine Bio, and other medical related courses as preparatory. Therefore I partially disagree with the reason making BSN as only a PreMed for MD.

Even engineering graduates, business ad / commerce graduates can take ug Doctor in Medicine (as long as they take up a few units as pre med, less than 1 year or so). I knew Nursing graduates, most of them wants the easy and kikay life of going abroad in First World countries with the white uniform.

What makes the old nurses suffer is that kids are still taking up the doomed degree... therefore further increasing the supply and decreasing your salaries.

And IMHO, a fresh grad nursing graduate's skills can be equally compared with a 2-3 year college level person + trained in 6-12 months nursing subjects.

Nurses, MD's, Radtechs, etc... your skills / specialties can be equated financially or by profitability... There is this thing called LOST MANHOURS in factories and industries where a sick / physically troubled workers need doctors and such to continue working and make profit.

[brownie]

To sum it up... the government does not really care if nurses are underpaid because there are too many of you.

Then, I do not firmly believe well off families enroll their children in BS Nursing because it is MANDATORY for Pre-Med. They can take up BS Psych Graduates, BS Bio, Marine Bio, and other medical related courses as preparatory. Therefore I partially disagree with the reason making BSN as only a PreMed for MD.

Even engineering graduates, business ad / commerce graduates can take ug Doctor in Medicine (as long as they take up a few units as pre med, less than 1 year or so). I knew Nursing graduates, most of them wants the easy and kikay life of going abroad in First World countries with the white uniform.

What makes the old nurses suffer is that kids are still taking up the doomed degree... therefore further increasing the supply and decreasing your salaries.

And IMHO, a fresh grad nursing graduate's skills can be equally compared with a 2-3 year college level person + trained in 6-12 months nursing subjects.

Nurses, MD's, Radtechs, etc... your skills / specialties can be equated financially or by profitability... There is this thing called LOST MANHOURS in factories and industries where a sick / physically troubled workers need doctors and such to continue working and make profit.

Oh no you're mistaken, I am not a Nursing professional and not related to any medical field, it just so happen that my world revolves more around them. 3 close friends are MDs who makes 7-8k per week just by moonlighting and one of them is an actual faculty member of CIM. Another is a Senior Fellow who took up residency and fellowships in the US (bec. obviously they can afford it), a head of some emergency unit and a very influential man in the field of Gastroentorology, his children took up Nursing because it is the only field wherein they can already have supple exposure in the hospital while in their student years. Those grads whom you speak of are not well bred, trust me on this because I can prove it.

The point of this is why Nursing profession is so maintream everybody hates them? A mere increase doesnt affect any hospital and even the labor charges after the induction remains the same (refer to older posts) and volunteerism is not dead. The flaw though is the probable upheaval of other professions, hence the word 'mangigi'. An increase of pay does not necessarily mean more nursing professionals will flock IF the adjusted requirements as mentioned will be strictly implemented (I assume you have read all the posts here and never skipped a single word) and the quality of hired Nurses in the future will be a notch higher than what we have now.

*Never ever heard of an engineering student dared to take up Medicine for the purpose of becoming a MD. Most engineering students, chemical engrs to be exact who enrolled in a Med School (if there are any) are those who wants to be Anatomical Pathologists.

[Scott Bernard]

Oh no you're mistaken, I am not a Nursing professional and not related to any medical field, it just so happen that my world revolves more around them. 3 close friends are MDs who makes 7-8k per week just by moonlighting and one of them is an actual faculty member of CIM. Another is a Senior Fellow who took up residency and fellowships in the US (bec. obviously they can afford it), a head of some emergency unit and a very influential man in the field of Gastroentorology, his children took up Nursing because it is the only field wherein they can already have supple exposure in the hospital while in their student years. Those grads whom you speak of are not well bred, trust me on this because I can prove it.

The point of this is why Nursing profession is so maintream everybody hates them? A mere increase doesnt affect any hospital and even the labor charges after the induction remains the same (refer to older posts) and volunteerism is not dead. The flaw though is the probable upheaval of other professions, hence the word 'mangigi'. An increase of pay does not necessarily mean more nursing professionals will flock IF the adjusted requirements as mentioned will be strictly implemented (I assume you have read all the posts here and never skipped a single word) and the quality of hired Nurses in the future will be a notch higher than what we have now.

*Never ever heard of an engineering student dared to take up Medicine for the purpose of becoming a MD. Most engineering students, chemical engrs to be exact who enrolled in a Med School (if there are any) are those who wants to be Anatomical Pathologists.

I'm not mistaken also... My world revolves around nurses. My sister is a nurse specializing oncology in Maryland for more than 10 years... I have lots of cousins who took up nursing also sadly ending up in call centers and english schools. And former engineering classmates who shifted to nursing because they cannot handle simple algebra and physics... and horribly ended up working in medical insurance companies.

I really pity those who took up the course for the wrong reasons... and forget to look at the world economy.

It's not about "suya" or "mangigi"... more of a facepalm. It's been YEARS already, the RETROGRESSION still exists... and US citizens are now encouraged to take up Nursing. Even in the Middle East, locals are beginning to embrace the nursing profession.

And it's mostly a LIE that persons wants to become nurses only because of service or helping others regardless of money... If you want to help people, why don't you take up BS Social Work? Let's just be frank... almost 100% take up nursing because of the American Dream or the migrating to the First World. We don't have to lie about this. And unless you want to receive a high salary... the new generations should accept the fact that the government will not give nurses big salaries in the Philippines.

Most engineering students don't have the desire to take up MD... but CHED and medical institutions openly invites engineers to be one. It is uncommon and unorthodox but the door is very wide open for our kind. Like I said, if an engineering graduate wants to proceed to MD, one can just take a few subjects for 1 to 2 semesters, you can validate it for those who doubt me. It's that so... accessible for us.

[Scott Bernard]

Regardless if you are a nurse, engineer, or any course... Excess skills are not required by the company. Your superiors only use and need the skills that are necessary for the job to be done.

Quality of nurses? The quality / skills of nursing graduates (licensed or not) before and now are satisfactory to above average to make the job done. Doctors only need nurses to assist them in their work. What the doctor says (medically / technically), nurses must do it.

The issue here is that the perspective of people are in DOLLARS... while you are working here in the Philippines. I acknowledge the important of nurses but not to the extent that nurses are elites and special forces in the society. In worse case scenarios (war, calamities, armageddon, zombie apocalypse, etc..) a properly trained person can assist a doctor as a "deputized nurse".

[DEMONOCIETY]

IMO d gusto c PNOY/ current administration na dagko ang sweldo kitang mga ordinaryong trabahante not only nurses ug minus ang opportunity sa ato para mangabroad ta ky ang gov nato diha man kita ang dakong IGO sa remittances!! mao na just like most of us maforce jud tag pangita ug trabaho sa gawas base sa atong kurso kung gusto ka mo enhance sa atong profession ky d man ta ma enhance sa atong profession kung mag call center lang ta ani

[Scott Bernard]

The first thing to solve this problem is

1. Discourage upcoming college freshmen to take up BSN.

2. Strictly regulate the Licensure Examination... 5-10% passing rate.

3. Encourage graduating BSN or jobless Nurses to take up second courses, with lucrative credits on the subjects to take.

There are many nurses who made the right decision in becoming Safety Officers and Industrial Nurses and are now earning in dollars, some are working here locally.

Currently there is an excess of licensed Nurses... something must be done. And I think raising the salaries of Hospital Nurses is not the right remedy.