Filipino Nurses and their Migration

Introduction

It is not a secret that the Philippines is one of the largest supplier of nurses to the world, with over 25%
of all nurses in the United States alone being of Filipino descent. This is not a surprise given the country’s
focus on education, the high level of English proficiency, and the strong work ethic ingrained in Filipino
culture. Filipino nurses are admired globally because of their working qualities and incredible passion
and dedication to their profession. The Philippines’ overseas population is an enormous source of
remittances, that helps the national economy greatly. Even during the pandemic, Filipinos living abroad
sent USD 2.9 billion home. Meanwhile, Philippine nurses working in public hospitals and government
offices had to protest for decades before they secured an increase to their pay.

With this kind of system, the number of Filipino nurses leaving the country are high.

Recently, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. revealed that there is a high demand for Filipino
nurses in Singapore, with the number of job openings said to be in the thousands. Because of this, more
nurses are set to leave the country especially now that travel restrictions eases.

A study was conducted to know if working abroad was really part of the plan for nurses after graduation
or they were just left with no choice given the treatment they were getting.

Below is a Pie graph showing respondent’s answer to the question ‘Was migrating to another country a
plan from the beginning?’
Interpretation

The pie graph shows that the answer ‘yes’ represented by the color yellow dominates the graph by
82.1% compared to the answer ‘no’ represented by the color blue that only got 17.9%. This simply
means that leaving the country and migrating was in the plan of Filipino nurses from the very beginning.
The low salary, lack of resources, and limited social benefits in the country has encourage these nurses
to push their luck abroad. They were convinced that working abroad is much more worth it with the
better working conditions, job security and advancement, avenues to improve skills, and travel
opportunities. With the benefits of working abroad, nursing students now are studying nursing not to
serve the people of the country but to leave the country to improve their quality of life and socio-
economic status.

Implication

For the implications letlet's talk first for the factors affecting migration of nurses. So the International
Centre on Nurses Migration gas stated that there are several push factors that encourage nurses to
leave thier home countries, including constrained access to educational and career opportunities, low
pay, a lack of resources, limited social benefits political instability, and absence of safety. The second
is impact of Nurse Migration: respondents pointed out that if the health workers returned to the
country, migtraration would provide benefits to the country in terms of learning technologies used
abroad. the migrant was however also seen as contributing to the local economy through remittances
and reduction of unemployment. And the last one is how to reduce nurse migration: Our suggestion is
ensuring occupational health and safety policies that enable well-being, redesigning jobs to optimize
the contribution of older nurses, maintaining a pay system that rewards experience and developing
succession plans. And avoiding age discrimination.