Kabataan To Government: Assert And Uphold Court Decisions On Nursing Issue

DAVAO CITY – THE KABATAAN PARTY LIST urged Manila Wednesday to assert the Supreme Court’s decisions on the nursing controversy, and to take highest consideration of the poor majority among nursing graduates in planned moves.

The Philippine government is set appeal to the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools’ (CGFNS) refusal to accept Filipino nurses who passed the June 2006 nursing examination.

“We believe that most of the 2006 nursing exam passers come from poor families who tried hard just to finish nursing and pass the exam in high hopes that such would guarantee them of better lives and retaking the exam is already an added burden to them,” Vice President for Mindanao of the Kabataan Party List, Karla Hyasmind Apat, said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

Apat said the nursing graduates would only be forced to retake the exam in the context of not prolonging their agony over the controversy. She added they would rather spend, borrow perhaps, thousands of pesos just to work in countries were their profession is in demand, rather than wait in vain.

The group believes that the government should start asserting the Supreme Court’s decision to the United States who benefits most from the nursing graduates of the country.

“We stand with the majority of the Filipino nurses who are left with no choice but to succumb to the Philippine educational system’s flaws in order to have a better job and better life that this government could not provide to its own graduates,” Apat said.

Kabataan Party List said there is a dire need to push for the legislative agenda that will change the orientation of the Philippine Education system which currently serves the foreign needs.
“Our educational system right now is very colonial and does not serve the need of the country.

Our teachers and doctors are turning into nurses for the reason that this government can not compensate their needs and benefits and the government through the Department of Labor and Employment even tolerates this trend,” Apat said.