Cebu City (2 October) -- Filipino nurses can breathe a sigh of relief as deployment for nurses going to the United States will still continue despite the recession in the land of Uncle Sam.

Belen P. Gabato, a registered Cebuano nurse who is a member of the Board of Nursing in Nevada, USA bared during this morning's Kapihan sa PIA on Nurses' Week Celebration admitted there is a slowdown of Filipino nurses deployed to the US but not because of lack of job openings in the healthcare facilities.

Gabato attributed the sluggish deployment to the long processing of documents that takes an average of four years as nurses are considered immigrants with the privilege of bringing their family along.

"There is a backlog because of the four-year processing period," as what they are working on right now is the processing of the 2004 documents, Gabato stressed.

Another contributory factor to the delay is when nurses fail to pass the required exams such as the International English Language Testing System or IELTS, Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) and the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), requirements before one can be absorbed for employment in the US.

Dr. Jucel Ann Jumao-as, education supervisor II of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED-7) echoed the same sentiment that processing for US-bound Filipino nurses takes some time as she acknowledged that there is an oversupply of Filipino nurses in the country today.

A news report was earlier bared there are 400T Filipino nurses left without employment as deployment for nurses abroad has slowed.

Jumao-as said the country is saturated with Filipino nurses because when the US opened its doors again for immigrant status for foreign nurses in 2000, many non-medical schools across the country opened a nursing course which led to the oversupply of nurses today.

Jumao-as said the hiring of Filipino nurses in the Middles East remains consistently high while Australia needs 200T Filipino nurses. Other countries that are opening up for Filipino nurses are Japan, Spain and Canada while deployment of Filipino nurses for the United Kingdom has dwindled, according to Jumao-as.

Though Gabato said they are fast tracking the nursing education for training their local nurses in the states which might affect the number of deployment of Filipino nurses wanting to migrate there.

But Gabato does not believe there will be a slowdown on deployment of Filipino nurses for the US as there are even two house bills pending in US Congress that will open the hiring of foreign nurses to address the shortage of healthcare professionals in the US.

Gabato also cited a report from the labor department that the US will need 500,000 nurses between 2016 until 2025 as there will be millions of elderly people within this period and training their local nurses will not be enough to attend to the needs of the growing aging population.

It is extremely important for the Philippines to uplift the quality of the nurses today especially in the communication skills as well as hands-on experience as these will be the edge of the Filipino nurses when they work overseas, Gabato stressed.