Monday, October 13, 2008 Health workers safe from global recession
OVERSEAS Filipino workers (OFWs) especially those employed in the health care sector are spared from the ongoing global recession and will be protected in the next 10 years.
Recruitment industry consultant Emmanuel Geslani said the growing demographics of the number of people, aged 65 and older, in the US is expected to reach nearly 46.4 million by 2016, from 35.6 million two years ago.
The sector as a whole is protected to add four million jobs through 2016; that includes 480,500 health-care aides and 512,500 nursing home workers," Geslani said.
He noted that aside from the US, United Kingdom (UK) alone have more than 21,500 care homes servicing England's growing elderly where by 2020 one-fifth of the UK's population will be over 65 years old and nearly half of these will be 75 years old.
Declining fertility rates and longevity increases in the UK and Western Europe have pushed the demand for care homes, however, many are understaffed at present a lot have resorted to hiring students to augment their staff, said Geslani.
But he admitted that aside from the graying population, the slow processing of the UK Borders Immigration Agency for foreign nurses and caregivers has added to this predicament that many care homes have to turn away patients for lack of beds and personnel.
The new point system implemented last July 2007 for nurses (75) points under Tier 2 has been slowly moving and this is the reason many hospitals in the UK are understaffed.
At present, he said, there are close to 10,000 vacancies in the National Health Service -- the national agency tasked to provide health and social care to UK citizens.
In 2007, less than 10,000 Filipino nurses were deployed in UK as compared to 13,222 in 2001 and this is due mainly to the decline in visa approvals by the UK and partly from the USA where visa quotas were over-subscribed in a matter of weeks, according to Geslani.
While deployment to the Middle East countries has increased steadily for the past five years, many local nurses are still hesitant to apply for Saudi Arabia and other countries based mainly on mistaken perception that working conditions and salaries there are not comparable to the US and the UK.
But Geslani noted that military hospitals and many large private hospitals in the Middle East can match facilities and salaries of US hospitals and their benefits are quite big, including an annual two-weeks paid vacation with free tickets.
Apart from US, UK, and the Middle East, Geslani said health care workers are also in demand now in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, which need half a million nurses till 2016. (MSN/Sunnex)
