EDITORIAL - Blame the system, not those who leave(The Freeman) Updated March 16, 2010 12:00 AM
Roughly 200 hospitals around the country, many of them in the provinces and rural areas, have been reported to have closed down. And the reason given was that there were no more doctors or nurses to serve in them.
While that may be true, it is quite unfair to stop just there and not put things into context. To do so is to cast doctors and nurses in a bad light, making them appear as if all they want in life is go abroad and earn good money there.
First of all, let us not lose sight of the bottomline. And the bottomline is that doctors and nurses do not just save lives. They have to live too. And with the kind of salaries they are being given, especially in these hospitals, they will be dying first before their patients.
If it has not sunk in to those concerned, medicine and nursing have become among the most expensive college courses to take. Nursing in particular has become especially prohibitive, and for no other reason than that schools are cashing in on the demand.
The nursing boom of a few years ago, which in fact has grown bust by now, drove many young people to take up the course. But instead of the time-tested laws of supply and demand prevailing, something unique has happened in the Philippines.
Yet, for all the expense invested in taking up a nursing course, nurses are paid peanuts if they work here. Not only is it an affront to the dignity of a profession requiring great skills, it is also damning to perdition to be paid less than half of what a jeepney driver makes.
Many jeepney drivers never went to school. Most even secured licenses by greasing some palms so they do not have to take driving tests. Yet on a good day they make at least P500. Many nurses working in government hospitals are lucky if they earn half of that.
And yet we make it sound as if it is their fault that hospitals are closing because they prefer to work abroad. Perhaps the question to ask is -- has anybody made any effort to make it even just morally worthwhile to work here?
First you milk the nurses in school, then you starve them when they work. And you blame them for saying enough is enough? Instead of blaming those who leave, they should be declared heroes for finally standing up and fighting the rotten system.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=26194.0