Posted on 05/30/2006 6:42:24 PM PDT by neverdem
It's become a stock image in the immigration debates: the flooded emergency room, halls packed with sick illegals seeking subsidized care. But now that image's negative is at the heart of a far smaller battle—not over the immigrants awaiting care in the E.R., but the immigrants providing it.
The immigration bill passed by the Senate last week includes a provision that would allow unlimited entry to foreign-trained nurses until 2014, and as a committee attempts to reconcile that bill with the less permissive House version, an open door policy for foreign nurses has a shot at becoming law. A free flow of RNs may seem like sound policy for a country in the midst of a severe nursing shortage, but opponents claim it's parasitic, emblematic of a ruinous American practice of stealing skilled labor from poor countries that can ill afford to export their most educated workers. The Philippines, in particular, seems to be hemorrhaging nurses, while the U.S. soaks up thousands of Filipino-trained RNs annually. Last week, a New York Times article, headlined "U.S. Plan to Lure Nurses May Hurt Poor Nations," implied that the Philippines' health system risks collapse if the U.S. keeps it up. Talking Points Memo Blogger Nathan Newman excoriated supporters of the Senate provision, complaining that " The U.S. refuses to invest in training and education of our own population, then instead leeches off the tiny investments in education done by developing countries."
The vision of American hospital administrators prowling the streets of Manila poaching nurses from Filipino hospitals presupposes that the number of Filipino RNs is fixed, completely independent of U.S. demand. But that hasn't been true for at least half a century. According to Catherine Ceniza Choy's 2003 book Empire of Care, Americans began training Filipino nurses in 1907, and the first wave of Filipino-trained nurses arrived in the United States between 1956 and 1969 as part of an Exchange Visitor Program. The Philippines has since become the world's largest exporter of trained nurses according to the World Health Organization. Filipino nurses trained in Americanized schools in English have been showing up in the U.S. for decades and in droves, and a nursing education has long been seen as a ticket out.
The government of the Philippines clearly thinks it gains something when America "leeches" off its investment. The government has consistently lobbied for more, not fewer, nursing visas in the United States and United Kingdom, with an eye on the massive remittances nurses send back to families still at home. The Philippines is heavily dependent on money sent from abroad; the government is famous for encouraging its citizens to leave, and eight percent of its population resides abroad as domestic workers in Malaysia, English teachers in China, and nurses all over the developed world. According to the Philippines Central Bank, large scale labor migration brought home remittances totaling $9.7 billion last year, and nurses have historically been among the most stable earners.
If the United States agreed to take in fewer nurses, would Filipino hospitals suddenly be flush with staff? Not likely. According to a 2005 report by the International Council of Nurses, new Filipino graduates "report that they can't find jobs in nursing." It's true that the Philippines suffers from a nursing shortage, but it doesn't suffer from a lack of trained nurses. Its hospitals are simply too poor to employ adequate numbers of them. That's a tragedy, but it won't be solved by slamming the gates at the U.S. border. Underfunded health care programs are a symptom of poverty, not of poaching. If the United States were to turn away nurses seeking placement, they would simply fill vacancies in every other developed country—the current nurse dearth is a global phenomenon affecting every region on Earth. U.S. demand has created supply in the Philippines: The medical professionals leaving now—at least some of whom will eventually return—would have been far less likely to invest years in study and training without the prospect of high pay abroad.
The Philippines won't suffer for the opportunities America offers its citizens. But it's not for well-meaning Westerners to decide where a health care worker would be "better off" anyway. Workers are not the property of countries that train them, and any policy that seeks to limit their options will prove cruelly restrictive. After all, stemming the flow of skilled labor doesn't just mean locking workers out of wealthy nations. It means locking them into poor ones.
Kerry Howley is an assistant editor of Reason.
yes, well what did they leave the profession to do? Were they degreed nurses?
My salary tripled when I left, and the job paid the same salary to all qualified people, including the nurses. Thus a science in nursing degree is worth more outside patient care than in.
Hospitals no longer want to provide patient care. It is that simple. There is no money in it for them.
My sister-in-law went through nurse training program in SC. Out of a class os 300, 30 graduated. With numbers like that, no wonder we have shortages.
You mean Americans go to school for 4 years only to have someone from a foreign country probably with little training come over here and snatch up their job. This hardly sounds like a job Americans won't do.(sarcasm).
Also, look next time at who is building your highway. I have yet to see a black or white face.
I see Hitlery is busy with her health care reform. I bet she has never stopped.
Bad training program. RN or LPN?
98 percrnt of my school passed the RN boards. Hard course, hard instructors. Tough, smart class. Its like making it through training as a SEAL.
Its not the schools.
Their is no real shortage of nurses. There is a shortage of nurses working in nursing. Its the hospitals. It was the hospitals before insurance companies took over and it still is.
Where are you getting your info? As a general rule, only government hospitals pay doctors salaries. Private hospitals don't. Doctors in private practice bill patients or the patient's medical insurance carrier.
"Only if they are HOT nurses. (did I just type that out loud?)"
I'm a nurse, but don't know if I'm hot. But then I'm male.
"Nurses eat their own....."
As a nurse since 1986, I refused to work in a hospital.
Most DOCTORS are complete A**holes and treat the nurses like *hit.
You used to be able to count on a nurse to be nicer than a doctor. The stress of the job has changed a lot of that. The health care industry is in a hot mess.
People have been brainwashed about sending their kids to college and not trade schools. Last time I heard, my plumber was making pretty well $$$$$
Hospitals no longer want to provide patient care. It is that simple. There is no money in it for them.
Both of them have said that. It's not clear to me how hospitals can make money, given the regulations and legal liabilities they have to deal with.
If hospitals were money makers, wouldn't we see more opening instead of so many closing?
My wife is a nurse practitioner and the doctors dispise nurse practioners.
Related to this story in two ways is this doctor who was living here who was from South Africa and wanted desperately to stay here in the US. We live close to the largest rural hospital in the US, probably the world, I don't know. North Mississippi Medical Center (Google it if you don't believe me).
There was this doctor working there who came to the US from South Afica which is in such a mess he doesn't want to return. He recently got deported! A doctor denied citizen status who was trying to do it the right way!
Salaries are rising, and rapidly! In the market I'm in, starting salaries 2.5 months ago were $20.82. Now the starting salary is $24.00, and more increases are expected.
It's supply and demand. In spite of the influx of foreign workers, the demand is not being met, so prices are rising. Also, there are not enough nursing programs here to train the number of people who want the training. There is a two year or more wait to get in nursing programs in the colleges here.
The California Nurses Association isn't going to like this much. They've become one of the most powerful forces in state government, but they may have a problem organizing a bunch of new immigrants.
no their not.....most docs are the best and the brightest we have, funny and articulate, caring.....and I won't even talk about the female docs....just fantastic....very patient oriented yet can maintain the needed leadership role....
Plumbers make a good wage but their future is endanger by a flood of illegals who are willing to work for 8 dollars an hour and do very poor quality work. The invaders have no pride in a job well done they just rush to finish the work. The more technical the trade the greater the hack job. HVAC and electrical work should not be done by the uneducated.
Speaking as someone who's done plumbing, HVAC and electrical on a DIY basis, let me tell you how right you are: almost anyone can do it, but it is damn hard to do it well, consistently, without fail.
Plumbers, electricians, HVACkers...they earn their pay in spades.
And carpenters?
Do NOT get me started on them! Constant precision minute by minute for forty years? With no chance to re-edit or file a corrective document? Impressive beyond compare.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.