Manila (AsiaNews/agencies) – Around 6,000 Filipino doctors are studying to become nurses. There is a high demand for nurses in Europe and the USA and Filipino doctors have every intention of moving to richer countries to earn more money. As nurses abroad, they would earn more than working as doctors in the Philippines. The phenomenon has become a boom: the Health Minister, Francisco Duque revealed that last year, around 2,000 Filipino doctors specialized in nursing. This year, the figure has shot up to 6,000.
The exodus of doctors and nurses is worrying for the national health system and the minister has announced the setting up of a work force of consultants to evaluate the impact of the phenomenon. It will debate a proposal to oblige Filipino doctors to work at home for at least three or four years before being able to practice abroad. "Nursing personnel are not lacking at all, but doctors are becoming less in number," said the minister.
A study of the University of the Philippines revealed that between 2000 and 2003, at least 50,000 Filipino nurses moved abroad to work.
A doctor employed in a public hospital earns around 360 Euros per month; as a nurse in the USA he could receive a salary of up to 6,000 Euros. According to Duque, even lawyers, businessmen and engineers are getting ready to become nurses.
Filipino nurses – both men and women – are highly sought after in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Japan and Singapore. Health ministry officials in Manila fear a "medical apocalypse" if the exodus of doctors continues.
