He is the first Filipino and the first nurse in UK won the prestigious award.

Fernando is a trauma and orthopedic nurse at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust who headed a team for his project called as ‘Striving for Excellence in the Care of Elderly Patients with Hip Fracture.’

The project introduced a successful implementation of service improvements for elderly hip fracture patients leading to specialist medical care and early rehabilitation of patients. It also offered a holistic approach for the physical, emotional and psychological treatment of elderly patients who suffered from hip fractures.

“I just felt very proud that a Filipino nurse has won the award for the first time and a nurse has won this for the first time. I also felt relieved that we could highlight the devastating effect of osteoporosis not only in the UK but also in the world and show the excellent preventative measures that we could implement,” he said

He received the award during the Clinical Leaders Network 2012 convention recently.

“The ultimate winners of this award are the patients and their families because in the end, they receive the best possible care from us,” he told ABS-CBN Europe.

The award giving body aimed recognizing the work of clinicians who have produced ‘successful projects that have led to both tangible clinical improvements and made a real difference to patients’ lives. To qualify for the competition, candidates must be able to demonstrate elements of quality in their projects and how these have led to greater productivity within their service area.

There were more than 1,000 applicants from the National Health Service (NHS) workforce in the UK. It was shortlisted to 10, then the final 3 were chosen.

Fernando impressed the panel of judges, headed by UK Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, with his project. For bagging the top award, he received a bursary of £5,000 to develop and spread his winning project to other NHS institutions. The two runners up were also granted bursary prize.

Fernando has always believed Pinoy nurses are exceptional and talented.

“By nature, Filipinos are very caring, compassionate and are also very innovative as shown by this award. I encourage them to do better in their profession and uplift the image of Filipino nurses,” Fernando said.

A graduate of Wesleyan University in Cabanatuan City, he worked as a nurse in the UK in 2000.

“I’m a believer in the quality of work of Filipino nurses. Wherever they work they always give their 100 percent, they always work hard and they always think of their family,” he explained.

He also added: “This is not just for myself, this is also for the staff at the hospital and for the Filipino nurses working abroad.”

Why Filipino nurses is in demand here and overseas? We are hardworking and trustworthy, in terms of working with other nationalities.

On May 6 til May 12, nurses from around the world will be celebrating its yearly International Nurses Week. This annual events aims to commemorate the contributions millions of registered nurses have served their duties as medical nurses.

International Nurses Day 2012 will be held on May 12, the last day of the week-long celebration. And it also marks the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. All members of National Nursing Associations (NNA) will pay tribute to her achievements and lifetime work in modern nursing.

The International Nurses Day theme for this year is Closing the Gap: From Evidence to Action.

The International Council of Nurses is an organization of National Nursing Associations. It founded in 1899, and it represents more than 13 million nurses worldwide.

“He owes Filipino nurses an apology for his recent tirade,” said Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Cuisia Jr.

Cuisia reacted to a remark made by a Council member named Marion Barry about Filipino nurses.

According to an article on Washington Post, Barry said that he wanted more residents to become nurses so that hospitals wouldn’t have to rely on “immigrants”, particularly from the Philippines.

“The remarks of District of Columbia Council member Marion Barry criticizing local hospitals for hiring Filipino nurses are deplorable,” Cuisia said.

On the same report on Washington Post, he said that there was nothing negative about his statement.

The ambassador said it was not the first time that Barry made such “intolerant and narrow-minded comments”.

“Just three weeks ago, he made the prejudiced observation that Asian-owned businesses were ‘dirty shops’,” said Cuisia.

He added, “Council member Barry’s penchant for blaming Asians, who only want to work for their American dream, fuels racism, discrimination, and violence. Such rhetoric does nothing but harm relations among community members, when the times call for developing relationships and finding solutions to common challenges”.

The ambassador said the Philippine nursing profession grew to become a major player in the global healthcare market when it became the biggest supplier of registered nurses due to the global nursing shortage around.

“Filipino nurses are known to be competent, hardworking, caring, and possess good work ethic. These are some of the reasons why most patients prefer and trust them. Like many good citizens, they pay their taxes and contribute to the American economy.”

More than a quarter of its 46,000 nurses represented by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation were trained overseas. Filipinos are the largest ethnic group in the country.

But a number of registered nurses had arrived under false pretences, researcher Dr Leonie Walker said.

“Some employers know they’re getting people with three or four years of training, but they’re paying them as caregivers. It’s largely the aged-care sector, which is a problem. There aren’t the ratios of nurses and registered caregivers that we’d like,” Walker said.

Some staffs were given cultural and dementia care training. They were bonded into two-year contracts to repay their training costs. Walker said it was little better than people trafficking.

“If your definition of trafficking is being tricked into believing you will find work as a nurse, being forced to sign a form on the tarmac and being bonded for up to two years, then yes, some were.”

Walker said the nurses organisation worked to get its members out of bonded contracts and into other jobs they were qualified for.

Tales of exploitation among the Filipino community were rife, a spokeswoman from settlement support organisation Migrante said. Mely Seria said she heard many stories of immigration agencies promising nurses in the Philippines jobs, and charging exorbitant sums as agency fees.

One nurse helped by Migrante to find work found herself living in deplorable circumstances after arriving in New Zealand last month. The nurse, who did not want to be named, told the Sunday Star-Times she spent most of her savings on agency fees and a flat, which she shared with four others, after not being able to find work.

She spent $10,000 applying for a student visa through a New Zealand company so she could study nurse management, and take an English language course.

But she was later told to take a business course instead, so she would have a better chance of finding work and enabling her husband and son to enter the country.

She said she was also told she would be helped to find work, but ended up doing it on her own. She paid $100 and was put up in accommodation in a central Auckland apartment shared with four others. The group was moved around to various rooms.

“I don’t have my own bed, I sleep with my friends in the living room on the floor. I’ve been using my pocket money from home, now it’s almost gone.” She is set to start a 20-hour week at an Auckland hospital, so she can pay for her studies and accommodation.

Recently, the Philippine Nurses Association in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia (PNA-ERSA) held their first general assembly at the Al-Jazeera International School in Dammam.

“It was very successful, with Nada Al-Amri, nursing director at King Fahd University Hospital, as guest speaker. There are aome 400 Filipino nurses from 30 hospitals and clinics in the Eastern Province participating,” Mary Jane Tupas, PNA-ERSA president, told Arab News. The theme of the general assembly was “Filipino nurses’, commitment in health promotion, professional development and community service.”

Tupas, a Bagong Bayani awardee, said that during the general assembly, a membership drive was also held. The number of PNA-ERSA members has increased from 100 before the assembly to 200 at present.

As Al-Amri said during the assembly, “I am very happy to be with Filipino nurses who have good work attitude and know how to get along with fellow nurses as I work with them. I am very happy in being a nurse who plays a big role in our patients’ lives and to see them become whole once again.”

Al-Amri also said that the nursing department’s philosophy is based on relation-based care. “We value building caring relationships with our patients… We believe that teamwork encourages nurses to work harder for the welfare of patients and their families,” she said, adding that she was privileged to work with multinational nurses.

She said nursing is a profession that needs commitment.

“The commitment to save lives and serve mankind are the traits heroes and nurses share in common. We may not have the power to create fire, power to fly or be invisible like our superheroes but nurses are equipped with skills, knowledge and good attitude. These are more than enough to for them to fulfill their role,” Al-Amri said.

She also discussed professional development among nurses, and that it was one way of tapping hidden potential. “The concept behind professional development is the idea that you have untapped potential, and to not settle with what you have if you want more out of life,” she said.

A professional development is a continuous process of refining character and qualities, learning and absorbing new ideas to become effective nurses. “I started my profession like you as young nursing graduates. Over time, I gained more knowledge and experience as a result of professional development. I worked for a master’s degree and eventually I was given the opportunity to become director of nursing at King Fahd University Hospital.”

She encouraged Filipino nurses to “look at things positively.”

“If you think you can be better, then you can be. If you start looking at things in a positive light, you will be able to put more energy and effort into everything you do because you know that you are working to achieve a certain goal,” she said, adding, “We nurses are the heroes of the new generation.”

The general assembly also served as a launching pad for the convention to be held in July in compliance with a regulation of the Philippine Nurses Association in Manila (PNA) that organizations affiliated with it should hold two conventions in a year.

She said for the convention, her group will invite Manila-based PNA President Noel Cadete, Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) board of nursing chair Carmencita Abaquin and Dr. Vicki Belo of the Belo Medical Group as guests.

Arlene Navarro, PNA-ERSA vice president for internal affairs, added that during the convention all Filipino nurses in the Kingdom as well as Philippine Embassy officials will be invited to attend.

“It will be a two-day affair. On the first day, we will choose the nurse deserving the ‘Florence Nightingale Award’. Every hospital in the Eastern Province will be asked to nominate a candidate. Candidates will also be welcome from Riyadh and Jeddah,” he said.

On the second day, there will be a lot of seminars and conferences as a part of continuing education of the nurses. Among the guests during the general assembly was Labor Attache Adam A. Musa of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in the Eastern Region (POLO-ERO).

LPGMA party-list representative Arnel Uy said that the decreasing number of nurses in the U.S. ended last 2010. And they are now have employed US nurses who studied there. And according to the statistics done by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing, he said our country has more than a million nurses passed the Nursing Board Examination from 2006 to 2011.

The high increase of demand of Filipino and foreign nurses in the States might start to reoccupy when a lot of American-bred nurses will leave their duties in eight years from now.

In 1998, hospitals in the U.S. experienced shortage of nurses. And with the increase in the number of American nurses and foreign medical practioners during that time.

According to New England Journal of Medicine report which states that there is a possibility of hiring foreign nurses to U.S. hospitals and when a major number of Americans has medical insurance coverage under its expanded healthcare law starting 2014.

With a lot of nurses graduated in the Philippines, both higher education and professional officials encourage high school graduates not to take up nursing.

Ty criticized regulators for their unresponsive action to labor market conditions.

“They (Philippine nursing officials) should be more aggressive in researching and projecting future labor market conditions, both here and abroad, to help guide young Filipinos as to potential career paths,” he said.

“Regulators are just reacting to what is already happening, such as the apparent glut of nursing graduates. Their late advisories would be more valuable once these are predictive and instructive, rather than merely reactive,” he added.

With a total of 145,081 Filipino nurses took up the National Council Licensure Examination from 1995 to 2011. And at least 938,552 US nursing graduates also took the NCLEX from 2006 to 2011.

The lawmaker pursuing a law that will provide a special local jobs plan for those Filipino registered nurses unemployed after they finished their studies. Jobless nurses ranked up at least 300,000.

Ty authored House Bill 4582 which aims to expand the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service. It is a short-lived Philippine government project that enlisted nurses to enrich healthcare in poverty-stricken towns.

One of the reasons why such demand rose is the transfer of the a military base from Okinawa Japan to Guam. According to a recruitment consultant, Emmanuel Geslani, aside from construction workers, Guam will also be hiring nurses and other health care workers with the impending relocation of US Marines and dependents from Okinawa.

They are looking for 30 Extended Care Unit , 10 Female Ward, 15 Haemodialysis, Intensive Care Unit, 5 Labor and Delivery, 15 Male Ward, 5 Neonatal Intensive Care, 8 Nursery and 8 Emergency Room Nurses.

Qualifications are:
- Male / Female 21 – 35 years old
- at least Professional License ( Passed Board/ Bar/ professional License Exam) equivalent to 2 years validity
- 2 years experience or more.

Interested applicants can visit Global Expertise Management Incorporated at Room 309 Merchant Building, 509 Padre Faura St. Ermita Metro Manila . Interviews are now being held in the office until March 14, 2012 only. Please don’t forget to bring your updated CV, latest photo, Certificate of Employment (photocopy only) and passport. For more information please call 528 – 1749 or 528 – 1692.

Global Expertise Management Inc. has been one of the most reliable manpower recruitment agency in the Philippines. They have provided career fulfillment and business development that offers best services for clients. They have been in partner with Philippine Overseas Employment Agency or POEA in helping Filipino workers in getting their dream jobs abroad. They are compose of highly motivated people with loyalty and commitment to the company’s goal.

Just yesterday night, the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) announced that out of 67,095 who took the Nurse Licensure Exam (NLE) last December 2011, 22,760 passed. Full list of passers can be seen here.

This achievement is clearly good news, however, these new nurses should stretch their patience long enough to wait for that dream nursing job. Some of the passers in the previous board exams are still waiting for it and end up having jobs in call centers and other areas.

Getting a job abroad would also be difficult these days as you need to have at least 2 years hospital experience to be accepted. You need to start from scratch.

Hope is still there though, as those nurses who already obtained their 2-3 years experience in the local hospitals would most likely be moving out and transfer for a work overseas.

Congratulations still for those who passed and for those who didn’t, don’t lose hope and try again next time.

Candidates should have a bachelor’s degree, Auxiliary Nurse Midwife or General Nursing and Midwifery diploma with 1 – 5 years experience. The processing system for applicants is very fast. Applicants can also get 6 -12months permanent residency in Canada.

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