consider this as a very long comment.

these are my thoughts after reading the post “Nurses from Abroad” by HK at her blogsite.

the nursing shortage in UK, other developed countries, and here in the USA is obvious. since i have only been here for a little over three years, i will not dare conclude why there is a shortage. this is just a piece of me. why i am here.

reason #1. back home, the pay for RNs is unimaginably low. not ridiculously low, but painfully low. let me elaborate on that. in 2001, i worked in a four bed general ICU of a 280 bed private hospital. i was paid 300 pesos (that’s about 6 US$!) for an 8 hour shift. no night/weekend differential. overtime is almost always free, no matter how long. since i worked 40 hours a week, i averaged 6,000 pesos (gross!) a month…which is more or less 120 US$! i didn’t really complain, because this income is enough to live a slightly decent life if one is single. it would pay for a bedspace (a room i share with 4-5 other RNs and student nurses), three meals a day, and other basic needs like soap and shampoo. now, when you are not single, and if you intend to have kids…there is no way you can decently survive with that income, even if you both work two full time jobs. before i decided to get married, i had no intention to come here and work. money was not the basic reason why i am a nurse, the pay was irrelevant. but i knew even then that my future husband was right to convince me to come and work here because it is the most sensible thing to do considering our plans to have kids and give them a better life. in a nutshell: the first reason why i am here is because I have a need.

i don’t blame the philippine government for such a lousy pay. it is a third world counrty, and expecting a higher pay would be like expecting to get a million dollar donation from a pauper.

reason #2: some countries, the USA included, need me. it is not easy to come here, but it is possible. i had to take the CGFNS qualifying exam. it is almost like NCLEX, but not that intense. i had to pass three english exams: written, spoken, and TOEFL. all involve fees, and the major fee for the petitioning hospital/agency. then, the NCLEX. if not for these, i’m sure most if not all of my former nursing classmates would be here. in UK, where many of the RNs i know are, they just send a hospital personnel to the philippines to interview the nurses, and off they go. once there, all they have to do to be registered is to complete a series of competencies.

i am not sure why the US government opted for the importing of nurses as a solution to its need, but i know that if the government won’t let us, we can’t come. i don’t know if this is still the case, but australia is one of the first world countries with a significant nursing shortage, yet they will never let other nationalities touch their sick, and would rather suffer the consequences. before i came here, i was an RN in queensland, australia. i became one because i was petitioned by my sister who is a citizen, not because they were allowing nurses to enter their country with a working visa. since they have no registration exam similar to the NCLEX, i had to take a 6 month class (three months theory, three months practicals) to be registered. it was not only hard, it was expensive.the US definitely has the option to make it harder too. i don’t know how they will do that, but i’m sure they can if they want to. foreign nurses do not really have a say about that.

my point is this: this is supposed to be a two way relationship. i need the US government, and the US government needs me. it’s always going to be that way. it’s not one or the other. even if i need to be here, if the government won’t let me, i can’t be here. even if there is a terrible shortage here, but i don’t want to be here, i can’t be forced to be here.

this is a give and take relationship. there are challenges i face that i wouldn’t even imagine if i worked back home. there are patients who give me the attitude because they think i deserve to be treated differently since i “owe” it to them and to their governement. there are co-workers who, in my opinion, take advantage of the fact that i’m not american. i deal with that, because i chose to be here. in the same way, there are consequences for having foreign nurses rule the US hospital floors. obviously, people choose to deal with it. when any of the party stop dealing with the challenges, i guess foreign nurses on US hospitals would be a thing of the past.

at any rate, i am a nurse no matter where i work. i am one because i believe i have what it takes to do things that other might find difficult or even repulsive. i am one because it is a noble, honorable profession. i am one because i believe i can make a diference, no matter how small.

it warms my heart that at least, a lot of the patients i care for do not look at the color of my skin. that warms my heart.