Nearly a third of the nurses in the United States who gave their lives due to the Covid-19 virus were of Filipino origin; in Wales, England, it was half of them. To avoid a shortage of nurses in hospitals, Manila authorities have started controlling Filipino nurses working abroad since last October.
Our RFI French website published on Sunday (February 28, 2021) an interview with Manon Tomzig from Manille, the capital of the Philippines, about the important contribution of Filipino nurses in the fight against the Covid-19 Epidemic, which is highlighted here.
The story of Filipino nurse Faustin
Faustin, brother of interviewee Ding, was a nurse in the respiratory intensive care unit of a hospital in Dallas, USA, for more than 20 years. Ding told RFI French that his brother was in charge of the care of Covid-19 patients at the hospital. He can be seen wearing a double layer of protection in a photo he sent to his Family. Ding said that Faustin was an important pillar of the family, often sending money to his mother, and that he was a good man.
Filipino nurse at forefront of fight against epidemic
According to Berkeley scholars who have studied ethnic groups, many countries are recruiting in the Philippines when they are short of health care workers because the health system there is modeled after the United States. The U.S. ruled the Philippines from 1898 to 1946, and its health Education was modeled after the U.S. The education of Filipino health care workers also included a perfect command of English in order to work in the U.S. or other countries.
They were usually at the forefront, so the losses were particularly heavy. They are concentrated in the emergency and critical care areas of hospitals, as well as in intensive care areas such as patient bedsides.
Filipinos complain of lost work opportunities
The Philippines has limited the number of nurses allowed to work abroad to 5,000 a year, following measures to control the movement of nurses abroad. In response, the head of the Young Filipino Nurses Association complained in an interview that the push for nurses to work abroad was due to a lack of local opportunities and difficult working conditions, and now, with the epidemic, health care workers lack medical equipment, including protective clothing, and are sometimes discriminated against.
In the Philippines, the average salary for nurses is less than 200 euros a month. Despite the risk of a pandemic, many nurses still want to work abroad.
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