Sunday, October 22, 2006
S. Cotabato hospitals running out of nurses
GOVERNMENT and private hospitals in Southwestern Mindanao are reportedly short-staffed of nurses by at least 20 percent even as over a thousand nursing students are graduating from several nursing schools in the region every year.
Lawyer Nicolas Lutero III, director of the Department of Health's (DOH) Bureau of Health Facilities and Services, said they monitored an increasing shortage of nurses and other hospital personnel in the region mainly due to the lure of working in "greener pastures" abroad.
"We produce a lot of nurses yearly but the sad fact is that most of them are not really inclined to take on local placements," he told reporters at the sidelines of the 7th South Cotabato Health Congress held in Koronadal City last Friday.
Records from the Commission on Higher Education showed that an average 1,000 nursing students have graduated in at least 15 government-accredited nursing schools in the region during the last three years.
The region covers the provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and the cities of General Santos, Koronadal, Kidapawan, Tacurong and Cotabato.
As of January, the regulation and licensing department of DOH-Region 12 listed some 27 private, 84 local government and one DOH-retained hospitals currently operating in the area.
Lutero said both private and government hospitals in the region have been experiencing a high turnover rate of nurses since most new nursing graduates currently prefer to work in local hospitals for only a short period.
He said some nurses take on some local placement just to gain the required experience for overseas work.
Lutero said the shortage of nurses is hampering the operations of some hospitals, especially those privately-owned.
"The bottomline cause is still the low salaries of our nurses and the problem has greatly affected our private hospitals since they provide lower salaries than government hospitals," he said.
Dr. Edgardo Sandig, South Cotabato health officer, said the salaries of nurses in private hospitals in the region presently range from P3,500 to P8,000 a month while a newly-hired nurse in a government hospital receive a starting salary of at least P9,000.
But he said these rates are way below the pay of nurses working abroad.
Filipino nurses working in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world could receives as much as P250,000 a month.
Sandig, a staunch advocate of a nationwide campaign that is demanding an increase of salaries of all government health workers, said the government should find solutions to the problem.
"The solution is to really make local employment more attractive in terms of salaries especially for our government health workers who are in the frontline of the government's health initiatives," he said. (Allen V. Estabillo)
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(October 16, 2006 issue)
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