Never before have physicians turned their backs to the medical profession and
shifted to Nursing. Yet lately, ngani Butuan and all over the Philippines,
doctors are doing just that. Ngansi taya?
Most of these doctors are practicing specialists, who invested 4 years of their
life in premed, 4 years in proper medicine, a year of internship, up to 4 years
in residency training in their specialty of choice, and in a few cases a year
or two more on further fellowship training in a sub-specialty. Plus the few
years in private practice, and that adds up to some 15 to 20 years of valuable
resource and experience being discarded. This remarkable phenomenon was unheard
of before. The big shift is on. Ngansi taya?
Recently, a formal study (a thesis by a physician for his Master's degree in
Hospital Administration at the University of the Philippines) showed that, of
the 88 active consultants in one private hospital ngani Butuan, 12 have shifted
to Nursing. All 12 are specialists. That's almost 14% of 88 doctors in the
staff of this one private tertiary hospital ngani Butuan .
Of the 13 Pediatricians in that top notch non-government hospital, 5 shifted to
Nursing. In addition, two Otorhinolaryngologists (ENT), one Urologist, one
Obstetrician-Gynecologist, one Oncologist, one Internist, and one
Gastroenterologist made the shift.
In addition, the city hospital and the provincial hospital recently lost one
physician each from their staff. Both have left to work as nurses abroad. There
are many more physicians presently working in both government hospitals who
have gone on to nursing school and passed the nurses licensure examination, all
biding their time before deciding on making the big shift.
Ngansi ba taya ? We can only speculate on the many reasons why.
A popular US newsweekly, in an issue a few years back, reported on the exodus
of nurses from the Philippines. There are many reasons for this massive and
complex movement of health professionals out of the country. One aspect
concerns income derived from the practice of the profession. A nurse at a
hospital in Quezon City earns about $300.00 per month, while monthly pay in
Singapore is said to be more than $600.00, in the Middle East $900.00, in
London more than $1,200.00, and in Florida up to $3,000.00. Nurses earn
several multiples more if they work abroad, one thousand per cent more if they
work in the US.
It is most unfair for some critics to bring up the issue of patriotism and make
the nurses feel bad about leaving their home country. Health care ngani Pinas
is not threatened by the out-migration of nurses. There are enough nurses ngani
serving the sick, and working hard even as they earn the dismal salaries
prevailing in the country today.
In a broader context, it is best to recognize and appreciate that nurses are a
significant part of the more than 8 million Filipinos in diaspora abroad.
Overseas workers send home more than USD$10Billion to enrich the Philippine
economy every year. That's approximately PhP500Billion. This amount is
astoundingly huge - it is equal to one half of the entire 2007 budget of the
Philippines of One Trillion Pesos.
The more profound question to ask is ngansi ba taya nga Filipinos, including
Butuanons, are in diaspora all over the world, in Asia, the Middle East, the
African continent, Europe, Australia, North America ?
Ngansi taya? Could it be that the big shift to Nursing is just a small part
of a bigger bleaker picture, just a symptom of a serious malaise gnawing bit by
bit at the country's economy?
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