Philippines Wants to Send RP Nurses to Czech Republic
Czech Republic is another country that is experiencing a shortage of nurses as their healthcare workers chose to work in Austria and Germany. Aware of the need to hire foreign nurses, the Philippine Foreign Minister, Alberto Romulo is eyeing Czech Republic as another work destination for Filipino nurses. Romulo said that he hope the labor market of Czech Republic would open its door to Filipino nurses.
Dana Juraskova, the president of Czech Nurses' Association said that no Filipino nurse are currently employed in their country and that she is aware that the Philippine government is exerting effort to make entry of RP nurses in Czech republic possible.
Foreign nurses who wish to work in the Czech Republic must prove their competence by undergoing an evaluation and pass a language exam. Hired foreign nurses train and work under the supervision of a veteran Czech nurse before they are allowed to work on their own.
According to Juraskova, "There is no problem in the case of nurses from other EU countries since their training is similar. There could be a problem in the case of Philippine nurses and mainly language knowledge."
Juraskova said that because the Philippines follows the U.S. training program, RP nurses are qualified to work in America.
She explained "As the association president I was addressed by the ambassador of the Philippines and I held talks with him. The problem is that they did not realise that we have to have nurses who speak Czech. Another problem is that no one in our country has analysed their educational programmes whether they correspond to ours."
According to Romulo, 300 to 500 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are currently working in Czech. Most of them are employed in construction companies.
Negotiations are currently underway to make the entry of RP nurses in Czec Republic possible in the future. Romulo recently had a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Czech Republic, Karel Schwarzenberg.
2,000 RP Nurses Wanted in Saudi
To solve the current shortage of nursing staff, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) aims to hire 10,000 more nurses to meet the urgent requirement. They will do this by hiring foreign nurses and by encouraging Saudi girls to take up nursing.
In lieu to this, the KSA is set to hire about 2,000 Filipino nurses. A thousand scholarships for Saudi women have also been granted.
The MOH director general of nursing, Dr. Munira Al-Osaimi, said"A number of seats for Saudi women have also been reserved in premier health institutions in Jordan, Australia, the US, Britain and Bahrain, to enable them to pursue specialist nursing training."
Saudi’s Health Ministry wants more Saudi people in their nursing sector. Their goal is to increase the number of Saudi nurses by 60% in the next five years.
Graduates of medical colleges in Saudi are also being offered advance training. According to the director general, the health service of Saudi is critically understaffed in areas including neonatal, intensive care, emergency care, and pediatrics.
Al-Osaimi added, “These scholarships are part of a widespread campaign to attract more Saudi nurses to work in this field.”
According to the regional director for the Manila-based Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Chita Cilindro, the recruitment by the Saudi Ministry of Health is in cooperation with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
Cilindro said, "The recruitment process was assisted by POEA, an attached agency of DOLE, and the Saudi Embassy in Manila.”
The regional director urged the applicants to inquire to the recruiting agencies early to be aware of the vacancies and requirements.
Cilindro informed that nursing graduates with or without experience are welcome to apply. There will be no placement fee and the salary of successful applicants will be
will be between SR2,250 to SR4,000.
