Search for nurses heading to Manila

This is from Canada.com. There should be some aid program associated with recruiting health care workers from developing countries. It is very expensive to train nurses. The Philippines seem to be a global center for training employees for other countries. There is some advantage to the Philippines in that oversease workers remit huge sums to the Philippines to aid families at home survive. At the same time, Philippine hospitals themselves are short of nurses not because of lack of supply but because of horrible pay. We have a relative who recently graduated as a nurse but the sole work in her area as a nurse involved working for nothing so that she could get experience and then apply to work overseas! She ended up working as a nanny in the Netherlands. We hope she can come here later this year and at least start work as a health care aide if not a nurse.

Search heading to Manila
Pamela Cowan, Leader-PostPublished: Thursday, February 21, 2008
Building on the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region's recruiting success in the Philippines last year, a Saskatchewan delegation hopes to sign up 300 nurses when it travels to Manila next week.
During a recruiting trip to the Philippines in November, the RQHR offered jobs to 80 registered nurses.
"We know that there is a huge shortage of nurses in Saskatchewan that can't be addressed overnight but certainly recruiting from other jurisdictions provincially or internationally is a good plan," Health Minister Don McMorris said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon.


At a Feb. 7 career fair, a couple of student nurses told McMorris that they'd like to stay in Saskatchewan but only B.C. Health had been in Saskatoon to do a presentation to the nursing students.
"I inquired through the ministry immediately about that concern and they told me that wasn't quite right, that they have talked to the classes in the past and I said, 'I want to make sure that we're doing that with all of the classes - whether it's the ministry of health or the health authorities,' " McMorris said.
McMorris plans to hire 800 registered nurses in his government's first term of office. He said that filling the province's nursing needs with home-grown talent is a priority but it is a slow process so the province will continue to recruit foreign-trained nurses.
"If we get 300 nurses from the Philippines and there are more that are interested, it will be a while before we say, 'That's enough,' but our Saskatchewan grads do not have to worry -- there's more than enough work for them," he said.
Laura Ross, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Health -- Nurse Recruitment and Retention, and two Saskatchewan Health recruitment agency officials will accompany staff from five health regions to Manila. The delegation's trip is scheduled from Feb. 28 to March 8.