SUMMARY
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MANILA, Philippines – Over 5,700 nurses from the Philippines joined a registry of healthcare professionals who can work in the United Kingdom, maintained by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), an independent regulator there.
This was shown in NMC’s recent report that covered April 2021 to May 2022, or the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the report, 5,763 nurses from the Philippines comprise 25% of the 23,444 internationally trained professionals who joined NMC’s register in 2021–2022.
“It reveals that the profile of international professionals registered in 2021–2022 is very different from UK joiners and the register they joined. They’re more likely to be men and they’re much more likely to be ethnically diverse,” the report said. Read NMC’s full report here.
Why this matters
The report comes as the Philippines’ Department of Health reported that the country lacks 106,000 nurses.
“We have a shortage or a gap of around 106,000 para mapunuan natin ‘yung mga facilities natin (so we could fill the facilities) all over the country, both public and private,” DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a press briefing back in September.
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, various hospitals had been hit by resignations, aggravating a shortage of manpower and exposing once more the plight of health workers in the Philippines.
Filipino nurses continue to seek better opportunities abroad in pursuit of higher pay and improved working conditions. – Rappler.com
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