Health officials alarmed

DUMAGUETE CITY-About 50 of the 300 doctors in Negros Oriental alone have enrolled in nursing.

"In other provinces, I am told that the numbers are bigger," said provincial health officer Ely Villapando, who is expressing concern over the nationwide phenomenon of doctors studying to become nurses so they can find a job with better pay overseas, particularly in the United States.

 
Nationwide, some 2,000 physicians are taking up nursing, according to the Philippine Nurses Association. In June, 2002, more than 100 doctors took the nursing board examinations.

A government doctor in Bais City, Negros Oriental, who asked not to be identified, said he enrolled in nursing so that he could earn more.

"We will be earning in one month in the United States as nurses what we make here in the Philippines for a year as doctors," he said.

"Many people ask us whether we are bothered by our conscience over this decision but let me ask you: 'Has the government ever bothered about us?'" the doctor said.

Demand for nurses in certain industrialized countries is fueled by the shortage of nurses and other caregivers. The United States needs an estimated 600,000 nurses between now and 2010, and Japan, 1.2 million.

Villapando warned that Negros Oriental would suffer from a shortage of medical staff because the doctors taking up nursing "will be leaving in one-and-a-half years."

He noted that all his department heads at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital were already nurses.

Villapando said he alerted health undersecretary Mila Fernandez about the problem during a meeting in Manila late last year.

"I thought we were the only province with this problem, but when I brought it up before a gathering of provincial health officers, they all said they, too were having the same problem," he said.

In Mindanao, some government doctors have started packing up their things for fatter salaries abroad.

Dr. Resuldo Malintad, provincial health officer of Davao Oriental, cited the case of his predecessor Dr. J. Antonio Tagabucba, who resigned to work in a hospital in New York.

The Inquirer learned that another government doctor from the province had also resigned to work in New York. It was not clear whether the two doctors had taken up nursing so they could work in the United States.

Malintad said it was possible that government hospitals could become mere clinics because of the looming shortage of doctors and nurses.

"The trend is already very alarming. Many of the municipal, provincial and city health officers are now joining the exodus of our nurses and doctors to Europe and the United States," Malintad said.

At a convention of government doctors in Manila last month, many more were contemplating leaving their posts to work overseas, he said.

Malintad said those considering working abroad had decided to take up nursing.

"The very attractive salaries and perks being dangled before Filipino doctors and nurses abroad are simply irresistible," he said.

When I first heard about this, I was amazed. I thought it would be easier or just as easy for a doctor to emigrate to the US. I know Filipino doctors who took up nursing. Several have already arrived in the US.

Dave H.