Tuesday, December 30, 2008
November 2008 Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam Results
Any moment soon the results of the November 2008 Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam will finally be released. If that time comes, the results will be posted here in this site. Just click on your last name's initial which can be found at the right side of this page to determine whether it is already available and whether you are one of the successful passers. Goodluck to you!
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Pinoy Singing Nurse
Video Info: A Filipino Nurse caring for dialysis patients in a Hospital in US uses his voice to ease the pain and suffering of the patients by singing while attending to them. Remarkable indeed...
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Why nursing shortage key to US economy
MANILA, Philippines -- The nursing shortage in the United States is so critical that the Ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recommended the facilitation of the migration process of foreign nurses there.
A report on the situation said the US economy, considered to be in recession, depended a lot on the operation of hospitals.
"Hospitals are one of the largest private sector employers, hiring more than five million people and stimulating economic productivity," it said.
Citing a study by the American Hospital Association, the DHS's
Ombudsman for CIS said hospitals supported one of every 10 jobs in the US and $1.9 trillion of economic activity.
And registered nurses, who held 2.5 million jobs in 2006, are employed mostly in hospitals; others are employed in public health and long-term care facilities.
A nurse recruiter told the CIS Ombudsman that every time the vacancy rate for registered nurses went up one percent, a hospital could lose as much as $300,000.
The AHA said the impact of hospitals on US health care and economy could be best described by these figures: Every year, 35 million are admitted in hospitals, 118 million admitted in emergency rooms, 4 million babies delivered, and over 481 million outpatients treated.
On the quality of patient care under normal circumstances, the threat of the nursing shortage and the subsequent heavy workload for current nurses is especially revealing.
The American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN) said more nurses would mean less hospital-related mortality and shorter patient stays.
In contrast, "inadequate staffing was reported to compromise patient safety," the AACN said.
"Most RNs have voiced concerns that there is not enough time 'to maintain patient safety, detect complications early, and collaborate with team members,'" it added.
Inadequate nursing staff reflected in increasing incidents of low
nurse-to-patient ratios in many hospitals "are no longer safe" and are in fact a "code violation."
The current shortage also makes it difficult for health facilities to
expand services or prepare for an emergency response. The CIS
Ombudsman was told that beds and wings of some hospitals were closed due to the shortage.
And in times of disaster, the nursing shortage would even be more critical. Members of the Americans for Nursing Shortage Relief testified before the subcommittee on Nursing Crisis at the House of Representatives that the shortage could result in "serious national security and health concerns if there is a pandemic flu or other man-made or natural disaster and the United States does not have adequate health care resources to respond."
During a hearing at the US Congress, it was learned that the US
Department of Veterans Affairs has a current vacancy of registered nurses of 10 percent (the absolute figure is not available).
"Notably, the demand for nurses will continue to grow by 2 to 3
percent each year," it said.
By 2014, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said, 1.2 million new
registered nurses would be needed to meet the country's nursing
requirements -- 500,000 to replace and another 700,000 to meet growing demand.
Aside from an aging US population that needs more health-care support, the CIS Ombudsman report cited the following factors for the projected increase in the nursing shortage: inadequate domestic facilities to educate and train nurses, the low number of nursing students, the existing aging workforce, and the barriers in the immigration process for foreign nurses.
The last factor is what the DHS seeks to address in its recommendation to facilitate the visa processing of foreign nurses, including Filipino nurses.
Read More...Nursing Now an Ailing Profession
"PAANO na kami?" (What’s will happen to us?)” asks an anxious Genevieve “Bing” Lorenzo in serious concern over published reports that the once burgeoning overseas demand for Filipino nurses has begun to wane.
This part-time private pre-school teacher is currently enrolled in a Metro Manila hospital cum nursing school with “high hopes” that she would be able to work abroad in four or five years, preferably in the United States, where one of her siblings is based. This 24-year old Nueva Ecija native is now having second thoughts about finishing her course.
Sometime in July, Dr. Leah Paquiz, president of the Philippine Nursing Association (PNA), said in a news conference that Filipinos aspiring to jump on the nursing bandwagon should think twice. “Many licensed nurses are now underemployed or unemployed as a result of changes of policy in destination-countries, the current situation of oversupply and quality problems, among other things,” Paquiz explained.
A slowdown in overseas postings for nurses, particularly in the US and the United Kingdom, has resulted in a glut of nurses in the local market, PNA officials said. Nursing is no longer a lucrative profession and students who think they can use it as a passport to greener pastures abroad are seriously mistaken, they added.
Josefina Tuazon, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Nursing, advises prospective nurses to “go into nursing for the right reasons. If you are thinking of going into nursing to be able to go abroad or because your family is pressuring (you), then it is not the time.”
Higher 
Big hospitals like Philippine General Hospital in Manila and St. Luke’s in Quezon City have a backlog of nursing applications and a waiting time of six to 12 months. But Ricafort strongly believes that “the slowdown will only be temporary. Nursing jobs will be available again soon. We’re very confident about that.”
Reports from the US, Japan and some European countries describe a crisis in hospitals there, notes this CHed official. “With these countries’ aging populations, there’s a need for nurses. Who will take care of their old folk?”
With a projected enrolment of 497,214 students during the current school year, nursing tops the list of college courses here, according to records of the Commission on Higher Education’s Office of Policy, Planning, Research and Information.
Also in the Top 20 list of most popular baccalaureate programs are hotel and restaurant management (134,688), computer science (100,760), criminology (96,991), information technology (95,353), accountancy (89,564), management (82,882), elementary education (67,204), English education (52,336), electronics and communications engineering (48,252), marine transportation (45,034), computer engineering (43,388), civil engineering (39,202), business administration, management and accountancy (37,773), economics (33,656), industrial technology (33,470), public administration (32,810), commerce (29,897), community development (28,769), and business administration (28,479).
An additional 817,688 students are enrolled in other college courses, including the “least popular ones like agriculture and fisheries which our country really needs,” notes Ricafort.
“With the intense pressure to globalize all our professions, meaning they must jibe with the demands of industry and labor, there’s the need for an honest to goodness review of our tertiary education curriculum. This calls for a paradigm shift in the curriculum from being supply-driven to market-driven in terms of content and structure,” she adds.
When Patricia Sto. Tomas was Labor Secretary, she pointed out in an earlier employment summit that there were “many jobs available in the market, but we do not have the right people who are equipped with the skills and knowledge that match national and global labor demands.”
In the same forum, then CHed chair Carlito Puno observed that higher education institutions were producing “graduates who do not match the labor demand.”
“Let’s face it, not all college
The CHed officer-in-charge stresses, “the answer to this is the ‘ladderized’ tertiary education program, an initiative of President Macapagal-Arroyo.
“Under the ladderized program, there are no dropouts. The curriculum is designed to allow flexibility. You may exit from one course and finish another. It’s not like old times when parents would insist that their children finish a four-year course because no one would employ them if they don’t have a college diploma. Not anymore.”
President Arroyo earlier issued Executive Order No. 358 which provides the mandate and legal framework for the implementation of the ladderized program in tertiary schools.
To date, all the 111 state universities and colleges nationwide are currently offering ladderized courses that allow learners to switch from technical-vocational education and training to college courses, and vice versa.
“But there’s a problem—only an average of four to five courses have been ladderized,” says Ricafort. She adds however that she’s confident that by school year 2009-2010, most courses would have undegone the same process.
In the private sector, less than a third of the over 1,500 colleges and universities have so far opted for the scheme. Lawyer Gonzalo Duque, president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities, notes: “Some schools have reservations about the concept. They see it as putting the cart before the horse, or implementing the program now and asking questions later.”
Adds Duque, brother of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, whose family owns the Lyceum Northwestern University in Dagupan City: “There are more important things that need our attention, like the problems facing the nursing discipline.”
According to both CHed and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), ladderized education gives learners two distinct advantages: “They can ascend successive job platforms, get employed, earn money to further their education and acquire more skills and work experience. And they need not repeat previous and overlapping subjects. Their tech-voc competencies can be credited as units under a related college degree program and vice versa.”
That is why, nursing students “may opt to go for the two-year practical nursing or nursing aide courses,” says Ricafort, who has been appointed by President Arroyo as oversight commissioner for the ladderized education program. Aside from nursing, HRM, technical teacher education, computer science and IT, over 50 college courses have been ladderized.
The CHed is currently developing other courses for inclusion in the program, including dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, medical technology, liberal arts and music education, among others. However, “there are college courses like law and medicine that may not be ladderized. Well, at least in the near future,” says Ricafort. “But we remain optimistic. Former Justice Bernardo Pardo, who heads our law technical panel, says they’ll look into the matter.”
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Saturday, December 20, 2008
Nursing Shortage in California
The video shows a Filipino surgeon who changed path to become a nurse in the US to provide a better future for his family. It also depicts nursing shortage in California for which pooling of foreign nurses (including a number of Filipinos) has been a great help to fill it up. Although recession has been implemented in US Visa procurement, the US as a whole is still said to be suffering from this nursing manpower supply problem as of the present time.
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Friday, December 5, 2008
November 2008 Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam Results
Any moment soon the results of the November 2008 Philippine Nursing Licensure Exam will finally be released. If that time comes, the results will be posted here in this site. Just click on your last name's initial which can be found at the right side of this page to determine whether it is already available and whether you are one of the successful passers. Goodluck to you!
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Monday, December 1, 2008
Nursing board exam ‘leakage-free’--execs
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines -- The nursing board exam this November will be “leakage-free,” according to officials of the Board of Nursing, amid reports that one of the review centers have released some items in the tests scheduled for the 29th and 30th.
Carmencita Abaquin, BON chairperson, and member Marco Sto. Tomas, assured the public that they have taken the necessary steps to ensure the credibility of the forthcoming licensure exam.
They disclosed that text messages being circulated said that a review center has leaked parts of the test in Baguio, Cebu, and Surigao and that members of the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) -- one former, the other incumbent -- were behind this.
But Sto. Tomas said security measures have been adopted to prevent a repeat of the June 2006 scandal. These include the quarantine of the members of the PRC and BON from the time the questionnaires are “extracted, printed, and sealed.”
Sto. Tomas said 500 questions per test have been encoded into the computer. These will enter certain parameters/framework per competency (for the 5 tests) and the computer will extract these questions based on the framework by which they have been entered.
"All these are done under quarantine meaning we have no communication outside," Sto. Tomas said.
And then the questions will be extracted, printed, and sealed, he said.
Printing has been centralized unlike during the board exam controversy in 2006 when printing was done per region.
In transporting of questionnaires, there will be escorts from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Sto. Tomas said.
"These text messages from review centers are only using the leakage as a marketing ploy to entice examinees. They are capitalizing on what happened years ago and the PRC is suffering from this scheme," Abaquin said.
The BON is coordinating with the nursing schools, as well as the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), to implement strict measures to make sure that the country will have high quality nurses, Sto. Tomas said.
There are a total of 88,750 nursing graduates set to take the second licensure examination on November 29 and 30, with the figure considered to be the highest in PRC history.
The BON will go on quarantine starting November 19.
Read More...100,000 RP nurses unemployed
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines -- A member of the Board of Nursing on Monday belied news reports that the number of unemployed Filipino nurses was more than 400,000, and that number was more likely between 80,000 and 100,000.
Marco Antonio Sto. Tomas told INQUIRER.net that a review of statistics with the Department of Labor and Employment, showed that the 400,000-plus figure was "not logical" and probably referred to the number of registered or licensed Filipino nurses.
"From 1952 to date, the country has so far registered or licensed 480,992 Filipino nurses out of the 523,272 who actually passed the Philippine Nurse Licensure Examinations. The 400,000-plus refers to the actual cumulative stock of Filipino nurses, not unemployed nurses," he said.
"If that figure were true, then I'd be one of the unemployed nurses," he said, adding that the 480,992 figure includes the dead and the retired.
Sto. Tomas said the 80,000 to 100,000 unemployed Filipino nurses could find jobs "not just in the United States or in the United Kingdom, where there is a recession, but also in France, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand."
"There is still a big demand for Filipino nurses in the international market even with the slowdown in the West," he said.
Sto. Tomas said the problem was principally "pacing," where supply and demand didn’t match. He said most health-care facilities abroad wanted experienced nurses. As such, new graduates who want to work abroad need to gain experience in the country for a couple of years, he said.
Sto. Tomas also said that the Commission on Higher Education should regulate fly-by-night nursing schools, which not only contributed to unprepared, unqualified, and unemployable nursing graduates, but also to the high failing rate in the board exams.
Read More...89,000 to take Nov. nursing board exam
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines – At least 88,750 aspiring nurses will take the second licensure exam of the year, a member of the Board of Nursing said Monday.
"This is the largest number of examinees we have in the almost 90 years of the board's existence," BON member Marco Antonio Sto. Tomas told INQUIRER.net.
At the same time, Sto. Tomas said the second of the bi-annual board exam was set on November 29 and 30, and not the usual first week of December.
"This is to accommodate the new board exam for guidance counselors," he said.
The earlier schedule will also force the board to go on quarantine earlier, on November 19, he said.
"With this volume of examinees, we might have the results next year already, in January or February," he said.
"It depends on how fast the machines will help us in the checking," he added.
Sto. Tomas said the usual precautions would be taken to ensure that there would be no leaks of the exam questions or results before the prescribed time.
The June 2006 nursing licensure examination was tainted when certain nursing centers came out with reviewers that had questions from the test. Many re-took the exam, but not after a lot of acrimony, legal and otherwise.
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