Pia to DOH: Shut down hospitals found exploiting nurses
under new employment racket

Senator Pia S. Cayetano today urged the Department of Health (DOH) to shut down private and public hospitals found exploiting new nursing graduates and nursing students under a new employment racket exposed recently by the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA).

Cayetano's statement is in reaction to PNA's recent expose on the alleged practice where hospitals take in nursing student interns and new nursing graduates who are not paid proper wages, or not paid at all, instead of hiring permanent nurses for their medical staff in order to save on labor costs.

"The government should not tolerate such an inhuman practice. The fact that we have an overflowing army of unemployed and underemployed nurses lining up for work just to meet the required two-year service experience before they can practice abroad, does not give any of these hospitals the right to exploit them," said the lady senator, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Demography.

"Not only is it demeaning to these exploited nurses and students, but to the entire nursing profession in the country. It's really shameful," she added.

Cayetano said the DOH should move to cancel the license to operate of all medical facilities found guilty of engaging in such acts. In coordination with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), it should also set up a system to prevent exploitative employment arrangements in medical facilities.

"The DOH can mandate the ratio of nurses to patients for each hospital and it can suspend or cancel that hospital's license if this ratio is violated. But as to the manner how hospitals employ their nurses, whether as contractuals or on-the-job trainees, and for any violations of labor laws, it is DOLE that has jurisdiction," she clarified, adding that their employers could face both civil and criminal liabilities.

She likewise urged the Philippine Hospitals Association (PHA) to conduct an in-house investigation among its members and file appropriate sanctions against violators.

Nursing schools who enter into exploitative agreements with these hospitals should likewise be punished and shut down by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).

"I urge those who have been victimized by this reported nursing employment racket to speak out and turn the tables against their exploiters."

"The nursing exam leakage two years ago and this latest nursing employment racket are just tell-tale signs of how commercialism has bastardized the local nursing profession. All concerned sectors should move to help protect the dignity and well-being of our nurses," she concluded.