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

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.

Laborer’s son opts to stay, work in the Philippines
Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 23, 2011

UP topnotcher wore red underwear

For a promising man of science, the topnotcher in this year’s medical board exams is quite superstitious.

“I wore red underwear and ate a Red Ribbon empanada,” Mark Augustine Saquido Onglao said, sharing what he held to be his lucky charms on the day he took the tests early this month.

“I also did not cut my hair or shave during the entire review,” added Onglao, who can finally take it easy—and visit the barber shop.

A graduate of the University of the Philippines Manila, Onglao earned a rating of 88.42 percent to lead the 1,605 passers out of the 2,131 examinees, according to the Professional Regulation Commission which released the examination results last week.

On a more serious note, the 25-year-old Onglao said he would be applying at state-run Philippine General Hospital and hopefully join its team of surgeons.

“It is not just about money but the people and their lives,” he said of his decision to work for a hospital that caters to the poor.

“For me, it is more gratifying to treat our fellow Filipinos than go abroad and serve other nationalities. It feels good to practice medicine here where we are needed,” he told the Inquirer on the phone on Monday.

Onglao said several other board passers from his batch in UP Manila also plan to work in the country rather than seek employment abroad.

“Perhaps we have become aware of the brain drain and the lack of doctors and facilities in the country. We all want to help change this,” he explained.

Payback

It’s also about paying back: Onglao was a recipient of the UP Oblation Scholarship—a grant given to the top 50 passers of the UP College Admissions Test (Upcat). He also earned another scholarship from the Office of the UP President.

Onglao finished high school at Xavier School in Greenhills, San Juan City. While his father, who ran a computer business, managed to provide for “our big family” that included eight children, “the scholarships really helped me a lot,” he said.

For Onglao, a doctor need not work in the countryside to be “community-oriented.”

He said he was taught at the UP College of Medicine that “whether a doctor is working for a private or public hospital, he or she should always think of how he can best help the patients and their communities.”

News of him topping the board exams came as a surprise, in a flood of congratulatory messages he received while he was hearing Mass.

“I was shocked and in disbelief initially. I even asked the one sitting next to me (in church): ‘Is this a joke?’” he said. “Eventually, the news sank in. I just felt blessed and thankful to God and to those who prayed for me.”

Not first time

“I just wished to pass the board exams. At UP, there were a lot of brilliant students and all of us had prepared for it,” he said.

“Mac” said it was not the first time he performed the “red underwear” and no-haircut rituals in preparation for big exams.

Since his high school days, he said, these superstitions had been a personal routine, “probably like what athletes do” before a crucial game.

According to him, one should never cut his hair and fingernails before an exam lest he forget everything he has reviewed.

Wearing red underwear and eating empanada, meanwhile, attract good luck, Onglao further deadpanned.

Has it worked for him all the time? “I think so,” said Onglao, who also graduated cum laude and salutatorian of his UP Manila class.

UP topnotcher wore red underwear
Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 23, 2011

Proposed 2012 National Health Budget: A perpetuation of government’s neglect on people’s health and welfare of health workers

Press Statement
August 20, 2011

Reference:

MR. JOSSEL I. EBESATE. RN
National President, Alliance of Health Workers
Mobile Phone: 09189276381

The 2012 proposed budget for health increased by 31.7% from P32.427B in 2011 to P42.693B. However, this deceptive increase is not intended to improve public health services or make public hospitals relevant and accessible to poor patients.

The purported increase goes only on the P12.028B allocation for Philhealth subsidy to the poorest 5.2 million families (20% of the population) and P3B for national government counterpart for PPP projects to be implemented on government hospitals starting next year. Minus the P3.5B allocated for Philhealth subsidy for this year (2011), the health budget actually went down by 5% or P152M.

The Philhealth subsidy for the lowest 20% of the population negates the fact that 80% of our people relied on public health facilities for their health needs. Thus, leaving the next 60% of our people vulnerable to the increased health services that will result in the privatization of health services brought about by the PPP projects in public hospitals.  The supposed “zero balance billing” for the 22 most common ailments that will be started this September, covers only the poorest 20% of our people, leaving even those in the formal labor sector (and supposedly covered by Philhealth) to absorb the increased hospitalization cost, in excess of the Philhealth capitation.  Furthermore, it is a fact that Philhealth capitation covers only about 30% of the total health care costs.

It also failed to provide additional plantilla positions for public health care facilities in spite of admission from the DOH Secretary himself that public hospitals are understaffed by 300% for nurses alone (1:30 nurse-patient ratio in stead of the ideal 1:10 ratio).  The 12,000 nurses for 2012 under the RN HEALS program is only an annual (sic - temporary/contractual) employment opportunity, and a " drop in the bucket" compared to the more than 300,000 unemployed or mis-employed registered nurses.  The RN HEALS program is also a form of exploitation of our health professionals, comparable to the "volunteer with fees" in hospitals, because nurses under the said program only received P8,000.00 as monthly renumeration, compared to P17,099.00 starting monthly salary for regular government nurses. 

The proposed 2012 national budget further decreased by P3M, the allocation for Magna Carta benefits for public health workers from P714M to P711M; instead of increasing it by P1.5B - to include all public health workers at the DedEd, hospitals under the DOH, and other agencies such as PGH and UP Manila (with P250M shortfall).  Ever since the enactment of the law (RA 7305) in 1992, the national government failed to allocate funds for these benefits; thus, hospitals under the DOH have been sourcing their Magna Carta benefits from savings and internally generated funds.

Finally, by centralizing the capital outlay of public hospitals under the DOH (through the Facilities Enhancement Program) (P5.078B) at the DOH Central Office; and all unfilled positions in the government (P23.427B) at the DBM, the Pnoy government only perpetuated the lump-sum appropriations practiced by the previous administration, which have been proven to be the source of large scale corruption.#