DAMMAM: Potential good news for the thousands of Filipino nurses working in public and private hospitals and clinics in the Kingdom, is that they may soon be allowed to open their own medical practices on their return to the Philippines. The Philippine government is now preparing a final career pathway for them to become medical entrepreneurs by allowing them through legal mandate to establish their own clinics, like doctors and physicians, upon their return to their country. “A road-map for our nursing population working overseas and in the homeland is now being drawn up that would prepare them by the year 2030 to set up their own nursing clinics – a move that would limit their dependence on overseas jobs. This would also ensure the extension of primary healthcare programs to far-flung areas in the Philippines,” said Ma. Isabelita C. Rogado, president of the Critical Care Nurses Association of the Philippines, Inc. (CCNAP). Rogado was among the international nursing professionals who addressed the recently concluded Fourth International Nursing Conference held in Dammam. “The experiences our nurses gained here in Saudi Arabia, considering the highly advanced facilities in the Kingdom's medical sector, are advantages they can bring home in establishing their own clinics. Nurses who worked here in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere around the world, because of their expertise, can partner together in setting up modern nursing clinics of their own,” Rogado told Saudi Gazette. According of Rogado, two of three stages that would finally qualify Filipino nurses to become independent medical entrepreneurs have already been achieved. The two stages are administration and education. She said Filipino nurses are administratively prepared and highly educated. “The third is to lead them to become clinicians, and to do that their competencies must be assessed and their credentials legalized by considering their education, experience, and research capabilities,” Rogado said. She said would-be nursing entrepreneurs are encouraged to pursue master's degrees in nursing and other allied graduate courses that would better prepare them to become medical entrepreneurs. Rogado said that confidence-building is vital for success. “Filipino nurses must gain confidence, not just follow orders from doctors. Nursing leaders are now improving the professional image of nurses,” the CCNAP head said. According to the Philippine Board of Nursing, there were over 400,000 unemployed and underemployed nurses in the Philippines in 2008. The number of non-board passers also swelled to about 600,000 during the same year. The Philippine Nurses Association statistics show that there are 250,000 Filipino nurses working overseas. In her meeting with a group of Filipino nurses in the Eastern Province, Rogado told them that Filipino nurses returning home after the end of their work contracts, and establishing their own clinics with their own staffs in their respective provinces and localities, will ease the increasing unemployment rate of the country and at the same time boost and strengthen the provision of healthcare programs in rural areas.
