15 nurses fired for 'liking' criticism vs hospital

By Aie Balagtas See (The Philippine Star)

MANILA, Philippines - Fifteen nurses recently terminated from the Taguig-Pateros City District Hospital for “liking” a Facebook post criticizing hospital management are now accusing the city government of refusing to release their certificates of employment.

One of the nurses said their group has repeatedly asked the city government and even sought intervention of various government agencies like the Civil Service Commission and the labor department, but their request has yet to be granted.

“We are no longer contesting our termination, even if they have removed us without any due process at all. All we are asking for is for them to give us our certificate of employment so we could start looking for other jobs,” one of the nurses said in an interview.

The certificate of employment is one of the major requirements Filipino nurses who wish to work abroad must submit. It serves as proof that these nurses have undergone training in the country.

The source-nurse, who requested anonymity, explained that 15 of them have been fired for liking a Facebook status criticizing the purchase of a CT-scan machine last July 13.

Jocelyn Imbao, a consultant at the hospital’s aesthetic and gynecology department, commented on Facebook about the hospital’s priorities in terms of purchasing supplies.

“CT scan???????????? Huh? Sana for free. Kase baka wala maka afford. Besides, ilan ba gagamit na patient? In demand ba? E ang oxygen, meron ba continuous supply? Bili light meron? Simpleng droplight, me bumbilya ba?” read the post. (CT scan? Hopefully for free. Because no one might be able to afford it. Besides, how many patients will use it? Is it in demand? What about oxygen, is there continuous supply? Simple droplight, are there bulbs?)

“Naisip nyo ba ang kuryente na ma consume ng CT scan? Did you know that before you operate the CT scan, you have to start it for a long time? And once on, you can’t turn it off and on and off when not in use?” Imbao, who joined the hospital in 2004, said, worrying about the machine’s electricity consumption.

At least 11 people liked the post, based on the document obtained by The STAR.

On Aug. 13, the nurses received their termination letter. In one sentence, the nurses were informed that they have just lost their jobs effective Aug. 16.

“They did not state any grounds. So we talked to the medical director and we’re told that we were terminated because of Facebook,” the nurse said, who said she recorded the conversation.

Imbao, on the other hand, never received a termination letter but only learned about her dismissal in a bulletin board posting on Aug. 31.

She said she is not contesting the termination because she had lots of connections in other hospitals.

“What I’m fighting for is the rights of the nurses who ‘liked’ my post and lost their jobs in the process,” Imbao said. 

Politics caused termination?

In a three-page explanation, the city government claimed that the nurses were disobedient and had sowed intrigues against the administration of Mayor Lani Cayetano.

“Sadly, they have done these things even while they were on duty and supposedly working on official government time,” the letter said.

The document, signed by City Legal officer-in-charge Marianito Miranda, added that the nurses were “consumed” with their “malevolent intent” to discredit Cayetano that they disregarded the administration’s accomplishments.

The nurses, however, said the city government “is only making up stories in order to justify our termination without due process.”

“If the hospital was not really satisfied with my performance why did they put very satisfactory in my evaluation letter? And why didn’t they tell us through the termination letter? Why only now?” one fired nurse said.

Meanwhile, Taguig city administrator Joel Montales, in an official statement, clarified that “Imbao and the nurses were not terminated because they liked (a) Facebook (post).”

“Instead of focusing on their work and cooperating and supporting the TPDH management’s various efforts at improving the hospital’s frontline services, these terminated personnel have manifested blatant disobedience and disregard of authority and protocols, engaged in sowing intrigues and encouraged discontent among the hospital’s staff and personnel.”

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Militant lawmakers want salary upgrade for gov’t nurses

Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Militant party-list groups in the House of Representatives want the salaries of government nurses raised to ensure that new graduates stay put in state hospitals.

The seven party-list representatives led by Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna filed  House Bill 5230 or “Government Nurses’ Salary Upgrading Act of 2011.”

Casiño noted that government nurses currently receive  P15,649  monthly which is the pay of  Salary Grade 11 government workers  even though the law provides that they receive P24,887 or equal  to a Salary Grade 15.

The bill would ensure the upgrade in salary levels of nurses according to the Philippine Nursing Act. The salary upgrade would put state nurses at par with the starting salary of call center agents.

Casino said the bill would increase the incentives for nurses to stay and serve in public hospitals instead of going abroad or looking for higher paying jobs outside of their profession.

He said the bill should address the persistent shortage of nurses in government hospitals. Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.

Laborer’s son opts to stay, work in the Philippines

By Jaymee T. Gamil
Philippine Daily Inquirer

1:48 am | Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

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NURSING board topnotcher Jomel Lapides, 21, of the University of the Philippines RAFFY LERMA

Even this year’s topnotcher in the board licensure exams for nurses agrees: “There are so many of us.”

But still, for Jomel Lapides, 21, this surplus can be turned into a strength—by making it more attractive for new nurses to work in the public health sector, especially in underserved areas in the countryside.

The construction worker’s son emerged No. 1 in the exams conducted in early July by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), where 37,513 examinees made the cut out of 78,135. Lapides, who graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines Manila, topscored with a rating of 88.4 percent.

The achievement, while bringing untold joy to his family who lives in a relocation site in Rodriguez, Rizal province, ushers him into a profession once considered to be a sure ticket to greener pastures abroad but is now overcrowded with the unemployed.

But in an interview a day after the PRC released the exam results, a euphoric and grateful Lapides sounded so sure that he could find his place—and it’s definitely not overseas.

“My family and friends are here,” he said when asked about his job-hunting plans.

Currently earning his pocket money working as a math and science tutor, Lapides said his immediate plan after getting his license would be to apply at state-run Philippine General Hospital (PGH), where he looked after mostly indigent patients during his on-the-job training. “These are the people who really need help,” he said.

A “simple guy” who enjoys reading textbooks and other materials even during the summer break or well in advance before his teachers called for it, Lapides said he had not given much thought to seeking more lucrative employment abroad.

“I’m content with what we have,” he told the Inquirer in an interview on Sunday at the family’s home, an unfinished one-story, two-room affair shared with five people, with a technicolor clothesline dominating the facade, and whose only remarkable piece of furniture was a tall bookshelf containing some 50 nursing books.

Motivation

For as long as his family would have enough to get by, Lapides said, getting a fat paycheck may not necessarily be his motivation and priority.

“[My classmates and I] were exposed to public hospitals and different communities,” Lapides recalled. “Though there are many hospitals, poor patients from the provinces still have to go to PGH (to afford the treatment).”

Lapides agreed with government assessments that the country, after banking on a high demand for nurses abroad, had ended up producing an oversupply of nursing graduates.

As early as 2006, the Philippine Nurses Association said demand for nurses in the United States and UnitedKingdom, for example, had plunged.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona has also been advising incoming college students to stay out of nursing since more than 200,000 nursing graduates are currently out of work.

Wasted investments

“I agree with the move to cut down the number of nursing schools,” Lapides said. “The students’ investments just get wasted because of lack of job openings. And even if they pass the board exams, if their schools don’t have a good performance record, it would be difficult for them to find employment.”

But he also saw the irony of it all: There are still so many far-flung communities in the country in need of basic health services, so “why not send us to serve there? There are so many of us.”

The UP alumnus also asked the government to look into hospitals that reportedly ask licensed nurses to still pay for their “training.”

“They are qualified and are serving their duty. Why do they have to pay for it?” he wondered aloud.

Tough questions from someone who actually planned to take up civil engineering—not nursing—when he took the UP admission tests. Lack of confidence at the time, he said, made him write down nursing as his “first choice” and engineering as only his second.

By his third year in nursing school, Lapides could already switch to engineering, having met all the requirements. But then he had already grown to love the course and his supportive “batch mates” in UP.

Text ‘joke’

He said he and his batch mates made the otherwise tough course easier by organizing study groups as the board exams drew near.

They had become such a lighthearted but closely knit bunch, Lapides said, that before he personally got confirmation that he topped the tests, his batch mates were already texting him about his feat.

And yet he still laughed it off as just another prank, he said, chuckling. His initial reaction was: “Sabay-sabay nila akong pinagti-tripan (They were all playing a joke on me).”

But the joke turned out to be for real. His summer readings and study group sessions had paid off, and Lapides can now celebrate not only his success but that of his fellow nursing board passers from UP Manila.

“I’m so proud of all of us,” he said, referring to the other 56 examinees from UP, all of whom passed the 2011 exams.

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