Friday, July 15, 2011

WANTED: School Nurse for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry



As of press time, I haven't watched Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II yet. I'll find time in the coming days, that's for sure (I became an instant fan after watching all the first 7 episodes in a span of 4 days while others waited for them the entire decade). Don't think though that this article is about Harry Potter's battle against the Dark Lord or he-who-must-not-be-named. This is all about my profession. Where on Earth are the nurses can be found today? Where am I?

When I filled out that registration form (RF as commonly known in many state universities) to enrol myself to nursing back in 2001, I was driven by the idea that after 4 years, I'm going to America. A decade after, I'm still here. I was a bit lucky to practice my profession for 5 years in two of the most reputable hospitals here in the country. The bad news is that not every nursing graduate shared the same fate with mine, especially today. With the high commercialization of the nursing profession (with nursing schools sprouting across the country), our state was able to produce nursing graduates and nursing professionals that can no longer be fully accommodated by hospitals, clinics, and other local.health care facilities.

What's next? The scenarios for nurses are getting hilarious and quite alarming. Here's a bit of them:
  • More and more nurses choose to work abroad before serving their very own country. (This is not new, of course. The issues of brain drain is an old story).
  • When you ride a jeepney, you can't just simply talk or boast about your being a nurse or so because everyone sitting next to you (except for the driver, of course) are all nurses too.
  • Many nurses are working on the BPO companies either as virtual assistants, customer service representatives or telemarketers. (It's quite sad, those things are not even included in the Fundamentals of Nursing).
  • Many clinical or nursing instructors are teaching even with a very working experience in a clinical setting (What would students will learn aside from theories?).
  • Many nurses today have completed a number of nursing and English exams (costly at that), yet they are still stuck in the country because they lack the required number of years of experience to apply to open countries.
  • Most hospitals right now are charging the new nursing applicants of unreasonable training or affiliation fees. (Mostly have got no choice but to pay just to join the nursing organization of a particular hospital they wish to apply).
  • Nurse Volunteering became a regular program even on private health care facilities. What's worse, most would volunteer working as a nurse for over a year and fail to get a post or staff position. The hospital will just give a “Volunteer Staff Nurse” certificate as a consolation. (That is a misnomer, volunteer nurse and staff nurse are two different terms).
  • Most nursing professionals have renewed their license for nothing. They are only paying a fee every 3 years without having the feel of being a nurse, if you know what I mean.
  • What's worst, some hospital nursing organizations internally built some sort of 'political system' where those whose in power exercise monopoly (I don't have to elaborate this because I don't want to speak about lies, deception, betrayal, oppression, favoritism and greed for power).

Indeed, with the above scenarios, nurses of today have nowhere to go. There are so many negative forces holding them (us) back. The competition is very steep, too. When there's no job opening for nurses in the Philippines, maybe nurses could go somewhere else. I have heard, there are so many casualties in Hogwarts now. They have an opening for a school nurse!




No comments:

Post a Comment