The recruitment industry yesterday warned of a lingering shortage of qualified nurses for overseas hiring.

The Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) said the growing lack of experience among new nurses would prevent the country from coping with the demand abroad.

Jackson Gan, FAME vice president, said even the government’s planned deployment of 10,000 nurses to rural areas would not help solve the shortage of qualified nurses.

He noted that trained nurses in specialty areas like surgical ward, burn intensive care unit, neo natal ICU, cardiac catheter lab, nursery, pediatrics, cardio-vascular, emergency, therapy, and clinical wards are in demand in the Middle East and the Western countries of USA, Britain, Australia and Canada.

However, Gan noted that those nurses to be hired by the government and assigned in the provinces will not be able to get the experience and training from rural hospitals.

“The program is laudable since it will give poor people in the rural areas minimum medical care, but hospitals abroad need trained nurses in highly specialized areas,” he explained.

Gan called on Congress to allocate budget for programs to improve the facilities of government hospitals in the provinces or cities so nurses can be hired in their areas and acquire the training needed for work abroad.

Funds can also be given to support large private hospitals in urban cities to hire more nurses for exposure to actual hospital operations.

“It is a much better way to help the plight of unemployed nurses instead of sending them to the provinces to do clinical work, which is not the requirement abroad,” Gan added.

Meanwhile, a Philippine government team is leaving next week to look into the possibility of lifting the deployment to Iraq and three other countries.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Jennifer Manalili said the team will assess the situation in Iraq and make the appropriate recommendation to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

“The team makes the necessary assessment and we will just wait for the recommendation of the DFA whether to lift the ban or not,” Manalili explained.

heres more: - Shortage of able nurses seen

to all nurses na jobless, mag "NARZ" nalang sa for exposure. 8k sweldo. ok ba? but dili man japon ma consider sa abroad waaaaaaa. saonz nalang