Those substandard nursing schools are degrading our Filipino nurses’ image
BY THE WAY By Max V. Soliven
The Philippine Star
There goes GMA again! According to Malacañang, President Macapagal-Arroyo has granted 90-day reprieves to another 10 death convicts who had been scheduled for the lethal injection chamber – among them rapists, kidnappers and drug-traffickers. Sanamagan. No wonder nobody is afraid of La Presidenta, and cheekily attacks, "accuses" and "Hello Garci" ringtones her.
A President, particularly in tough times, is supposed to be tough. Instead, she’s coming across as a wimp. Sure, La Gloria didn’t "resign" despite the defections, charges, and tiradas against her, but then, to curry favor with (mind you, I didn’t say "suck up" to) Churchmen, the European Union, and other anti-death-penalty bleeding hearts, she’s not implementing long-overdue executions mandated by the capital punishment law.
Last April, GMA granted another batch of 10 death convicts another 90-day reprieve. I confronted her on this and she blandly replied, at the time, that imposing the death penalty wasn’t "necessary," and besides, she added, living inside our prisons was more of a hell than death itself. What a thing to say! Prison conditions must be improved, otherwise our jails and penal institutions will continue to convert even young kids slapped in those over-crowded, dirty, disgraceful prison infiernos into hellish types of hoodlums when and if they survive – and reemerge with rage in their breasts against society.
As for convicts finally sentenced to execution after years of court appeals, they must be executed without further delay. Death Row, with more than 1,000 already-sentenced convicts, supposed to be "dead men walking", already crammed knee to knee with each other in filthy cells, must be decongested.
"No executions during my tenure!" GMA was in fact said to have exclaimed. By golly. As I’ve said more than once in this corner, nobody’s afraid of her – not even Michaelangelo Zuce, El Fatso himself, who’s only scared (he claims) of ex-General Jun Ebdane, former Police Chief now DPWH Secretary and Grand Mason.
Even Erap was bullied by the late Cardinal Sin and the Bishops into eschewing capital punishment after only seven convicts were executed during his short-lived term. His yielding to their demand that executions be curtailed didn’t prevent them from spearheading the move to topple him. If GMA expects gratitude and support for her wishy-washy ways, she’s got disappointment coming.
Execute those criminals! Impose the law resolutely, on whomever and whatever, Madam President. And a grateful nation, freed from fear and feeling more secure at home and in the streets, will finally uphold you. La Presidenta caters to the wrong groups, including those who despise her, or would betray her given the slightest opportunity. This is where she miserably fails.
The great Niccolo Machiavelli of Florence, whose name has become synonymous in history with cynicism, cunning and statecraft, once wrote: "I desire to go to hell and not to heaven. In the former place I shall enjoy the company of Popes, Kings and Princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles."
GMA’s tremulous policies find her suspended, alas, between heaven and hell. Unless she changes, she may find herself in the end qualified for neither. Not even purgatory. * * *
We’re foolishly alarmed that 1,003 doctors, i.e. practicing physicians are "retraining " to become nurses, so they can seek better-paying nursing positions abroad. Of course we ought to be worried about this kind of brain drain. The fact is that quite a number of experienced doctors, including specialists originally trained in the United States and who earlier practiced there before coming home, are packing up to leave, too.
The current turmoil, the angst and anxiety generated by non-stop political infighting and open-ended "oust Gloria" warfare, are generating if not despair some kind of debilitating ennui which is further unbalancing our already previously listing economy.
Frankly, I don’t see too many shining knights on either side – and many of those crying out for "impeachment" aren’t angels, for that matter. You all know their past records and methods of self-enrichment. What is it the people said during Shakespeare’s time? "A pox on both your houses!" How pertinent to the day.
Instead of fretting over doctors leaving the field when we already have too few doctors, we should turn our gaze towards the mushrooming of substandard Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs in colleges and universities.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has valiantly been trying – like Horatius at the Bridge – to stem the proliferation of institutions offering such inferior B.S. Nursing programs by strictly monitoring existing nursing schools. Allow me to compliment CHED, which operates under the able leadership of Dr. Carlito S. Puno, its Commissioner, for trying to hold the line on this vital matter.
To date there are already 303 recognized nursing schools and 122 schools with initial permits, which gives us a total of 425 nursing schools – whew! There is strong pressure being exerted on CHED to "approve" additional nursing schools. Indeed, Malacañang even interfered by issuing a "stand order" to one school denied a nursing permit by CHED. This meddling, to my mind, is disgusting, particularly since the "influential" nursing school in question has no base hospital and doesn’t seem to be able to name a qualified dean to supervise a capable faculty.
CHED is now in hot water with the Palace for its moratorium on the opening of new nursing programs, which are in great demand by over-eager would-be overseas workers. CHED believes, and rightly so, that if it approves new nursing schools this could seriously affect the quality of nurses "produced" in our country. The results of the latest nursing board examinations demonstrate the gradual decline in the quality of performance of nursing graduates. Nurses just can’t be turned out like cars assembled and rolled off an assembly line: they must be trained to help and treat patients who are ill wounded. Attesting to the logjam in would-be nurses, there is an increasing patient-to-nursing-student ratio from 1 patient to 2 nursing students, to 1 patient to 15 nursing students! Would you believe: patients will now have to be visited 15 times a day for routine check-up. Those too-frequent visitations, wouldn’t you agree, would contrive to make a sick person even sicker. This ratio will even increase if the executive and legislative branches put pressure on CHED, or even impose directives requiring CHED to approve additional nursing schools. The awful truth is that the existence of 425 nursing schools already explains the dearth of qualified deans to be presented to CHED prior to the approval of permits.
Why all the pressure? Our government and politicians are eager for their constituents to "cash in" on the global need for more nurses. Up to now, Filipino nurses are in popular demand, but if their quality of professionalism deteriorates – then demand will evaporate.
A few years ago, Physical Therapy courses were the hot ticket. There used to be such a demand for Filipino physical therapists
on the international market that our schools rushed half-baked trainees with "diplomas" to fill the need. With so many unqualified graduates flooding the market, the market eventually shut down and went drastically further: it imposed a ban on PT graduates from the Philippines! How embarrassing.
Now, are we heading for a similar fall? The time may come when Filipina nurses could be regarded abroad as mere bottom-wipers and virtual "coolie" labor, only qualified to mop hospital floors or perform the most menial tasks in clinics. This is why we must support CHED’s Technical Committee on Nursing Education when it enforces strict measures on "accreditation."
The oldtime movie comedian Groucho Marx (no relation to Karl Marx although at times both are equally hilarious) once quipped when examining a patient: "Either this man is dead or my watch stopped."
The watch may one day stop on our nursing profession, the way things are going
The Philippine Star
There goes GMA again! According to Malacañang, President Macapagal-Arroyo has granted 90-day reprieves to another 10 death convicts who had been scheduled for the lethal injection chamber – among them rapists, kidnappers and drug-traffickers. Sanamagan. No wonder nobody is afraid of La Presidenta, and cheekily attacks, "accuses" and "Hello Garci" ringtones her.
A President, particularly in tough times, is supposed to be tough. Instead, she’s coming across as a wimp. Sure, La Gloria didn’t "resign" despite the defections, charges, and tiradas against her, but then, to curry favor with (mind you, I didn’t say "suck up" to) Churchmen, the European Union, and other anti-death-penalty bleeding hearts, she’s not implementing long-overdue executions mandated by the capital punishment law.
Last April, GMA granted another batch of 10 death convicts another 90-day reprieve. I confronted her on this and she blandly replied, at the time, that imposing the death penalty wasn’t "necessary," and besides, she added, living inside our prisons was more of a hell than death itself. What a thing to say! Prison conditions must be improved, otherwise our jails and penal institutions will continue to convert even young kids slapped in those over-crowded, dirty, disgraceful prison infiernos into hellish types of hoodlums when and if they survive – and reemerge with rage in their breasts against society.
As for convicts finally sentenced to execution after years of court appeals, they must be executed without further delay. Death Row, with more than 1,000 already-sentenced convicts, supposed to be "dead men walking", already crammed knee to knee with each other in filthy cells, must be decongested.
"No executions during my tenure!" GMA was in fact said to have exclaimed. By golly. As I’ve said more than once in this corner, nobody’s afraid of her – not even Michaelangelo Zuce, El Fatso himself, who’s only scared (he claims) of ex-General Jun Ebdane, former Police Chief now DPWH Secretary and Grand Mason.
Even Erap was bullied by the late Cardinal Sin and the Bishops into eschewing capital punishment after only seven convicts were executed during his short-lived term. His yielding to their demand that executions be curtailed didn’t prevent them from spearheading the move to topple him. If GMA expects gratitude and support for her wishy-washy ways, she’s got disappointment coming.
Execute those criminals! Impose the law resolutely, on whomever and whatever, Madam President. And a grateful nation, freed from fear and feeling more secure at home and in the streets, will finally uphold you. La Presidenta caters to the wrong groups, including those who despise her, or would betray her given the slightest opportunity. This is where she miserably fails.
The great Niccolo Machiavelli of Florence, whose name has become synonymous in history with cynicism, cunning and statecraft, once wrote: "I desire to go to hell and not to heaven. In the former place I shall enjoy the company of Popes, Kings and Princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles."
GMA’s tremulous policies find her suspended, alas, between heaven and hell. Unless she changes, she may find herself in the end qualified for neither. Not even purgatory. * * *
We’re foolishly alarmed that 1,003 doctors, i.e. practicing physicians are "retraining " to become nurses, so they can seek better-paying nursing positions abroad. Of course we ought to be worried about this kind of brain drain. The fact is that quite a number of experienced doctors, including specialists originally trained in the United States and who earlier practiced there before coming home, are packing up to leave, too.
The current turmoil, the angst and anxiety generated by non-stop political infighting and open-ended "oust Gloria" warfare, are generating if not despair some kind of debilitating ennui which is further unbalancing our already previously listing economy.
Frankly, I don’t see too many shining knights on either side – and many of those crying out for "impeachment" aren’t angels, for that matter. You all know their past records and methods of self-enrichment. What is it the people said during Shakespeare’s time? "A pox on both your houses!" How pertinent to the day.
Instead of fretting over doctors leaving the field when we already have too few doctors, we should turn our gaze towards the mushrooming of substandard Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs in colleges and universities.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has valiantly been trying – like Horatius at the Bridge – to stem the proliferation of institutions offering such inferior B.S. Nursing programs by strictly monitoring existing nursing schools. Allow me to compliment CHED, which operates under the able leadership of Dr. Carlito S. Puno, its Commissioner, for trying to hold the line on this vital matter.
To date there are already 303 recognized nursing schools and 122 schools with initial permits, which gives us a total of 425 nursing schools – whew! There is strong pressure being exerted on CHED to "approve" additional nursing schools. Indeed, Malacañang even interfered by issuing a "stand order" to one school denied a nursing permit by CHED. This meddling, to my mind, is disgusting, particularly since the "influential" nursing school in question has no base hospital and doesn’t seem to be able to name a qualified dean to supervise a capable faculty.
CHED is now in hot water with the Palace for its moratorium on the opening of new nursing programs, which are in great demand by over-eager would-be overseas workers. CHED believes, and rightly so, that if it approves new nursing schools this could seriously affect the quality of nurses "produced" in our country. The results of the latest nursing board examinations demonstrate the gradual decline in the quality of performance of nursing graduates. Nurses just can’t be turned out like cars assembled and rolled off an assembly line: they must be trained to help and treat patients who are ill wounded. Attesting to the logjam in would-be nurses, there is an increasing patient-to-nursing-student ratio from 1 patient to 2 nursing students, to 1 patient to 15 nursing students! Would you believe: patients will now have to be visited 15 times a day for routine check-up. Those too-frequent visitations, wouldn’t you agree, would contrive to make a sick person even sicker. This ratio will even increase if the executive and legislative branches put pressure on CHED, or even impose directives requiring CHED to approve additional nursing schools. The awful truth is that the existence of 425 nursing schools already explains the dearth of qualified deans to be presented to CHED prior to the approval of permits.
Why all the pressure? Our government and politicians are eager for their constituents to "cash in" on the global need for more nurses. Up to now, Filipino nurses are in popular demand, but if their quality of professionalism deteriorates – then demand will evaporate.
A few years ago, Physical Therapy courses were the hot ticket. There used to be such a demand for Filipino physical therapists
on the international market that our schools rushed half-baked trainees with "diplomas" to fill the need. With so many unqualified graduates flooding the market, the market eventually shut down and went drastically further: it imposed a ban on PT graduates from the Philippines! How embarrassing.
Now, are we heading for a similar fall? The time may come when Filipina nurses could be regarded abroad as mere bottom-wipers and virtual "coolie" labor, only qualified to mop hospital floors or perform the most menial tasks in clinics. This is why we must support CHED’s Technical Committee on Nursing Education when it enforces strict measures on "accreditation."
The oldtime movie comedian Groucho Marx (no relation to Karl Marx although at times both are equally hilarious) once quipped when examining a patient: "Either this man is dead or my watch stopped."
The watch may one day stop on our nursing profession, the way things are going
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