It has been 19 months since I quit my job as an ER nurse. Everyday, everynight, I never had a thought of "what if I'm still an ER nurse?". Every moment I got to see a nurse wearing a scrubsuit, I ask my self, "why am i not a nurse anymore?" Every week, I try to visit the facility where I worked for almost 4 years, just to let myself remind how I was before. I resigned not because Im going abroad, not yet, I left ER because I had to, for my family, to see if I can do something to make our family complete after almost one and half a decade of being away from each other. Until that reason became two and now I got lots of reasons not to come back to the same facility. All the bills, dues and exams needed to be paid to get a higher paying job in abroad, all those became the reasons why I cannot anymore. Most of my friends from that facility already left, they went abroad, to NZ, Aus, UK, SG, DxB, US, and KSA. And most of those nurses were the experienced and skillful I met in my life. I wonder now what will happen to our own country in the next years. The curriculum was just changed, and with that, the number of Nursing graduates drops, and what more significant thing is that those graduates tend to take Medicine afterwards and will go to abroad to practice. The issue is not just the money, yes it is very true, we can earn alot of money in those countries, but the most important matter is, Filipino Nurses were never treated fairly specially in their own homeland. No health benefits; such as HMO, free room charge once admitted, free medication; unless they get and pay their own, the fact that they are working in a healthcare facility, how come they can't have the best from their own facility? Not all doctors are like with the tv shows we got to see, some do worst things with their nurses, they speak to them/us as if they are the ones who gave us life, shaming nurses in front of the patients and relatives, pointing the blame to nurses once a mistake is caught and affected the patient (again not all, there are doctors whom are very diligent with the service they provide). Patients and relatives with high position in the community or known by many try to abuse nurses by throwing things, food and evertything else towards us, being unreasonable for the harsh words they utter to their nurses, using their power and connections to be prioritized even there's no reason to hurry. And the government, the Philippine government who never had the gut to acknowledge that health is one of the essential components of a community to grow. Those corrupt people who always try to get something or everything from the tax for their own convinience, without thinking that all the healthcare facilities and providers are not enough and not receiving what they deserve. I hope it will not happen to us, but with what is happening right now, a day without the experienced and skilled doctors and nurses will come. If nothing will be changed for the better. In the near future please do not blame the newly graduates if they are not yet competent, it's just that, no one is there for them to train and teach the proper and quality healthcare everyone deserves anymore. We are all in the greener pastuer by then.
