Longed Accolade
Category: Filipino Nurses, Filipino Nurses' Stories, Nurses’ Careers, Nursing Industry in the Philippines, Posted on August 21st, 2009 by adminNo Comments
There isn’t enough wind blowing in the windmills of my mind right now, but let me try this one.
Before we left the portals of the institution that molded us to be competent nurses, it was inculcated into our young minds that we should be proud of our chosen paths. That anywhere we go we should uphold the value of education because it’s supposed to serve as the bulwark or bastion that protects us when we will be facing the real and actual world—–a brilliant, honest and reassuring fact. The bulwark or bastion that protects us, I couldn’t agree more but to be proud of our chosen paths, I’m afraid I’m not sure.
I remembered a SMS that I received from a friend, a nurse too, it said ”the most difficult and depressing question for a registered nurse: where are you working right now?” And to make it funny a “hehehe” was attached to it—–an attempt to humor our unemployment problems.
Nurses in the Philippines are facing a colossal fight against unemployment and none of us know when and how this epic battle would end. From a dream of a better life abroad we, as naïve as we are, trod the primary paths that would lead us to realizing this dream. Now, the nursing population in our country has totally blown out of proportion. Coerced to survive (who would not want to), like savage animals, we prey on any jobs and attempt to speak the language of other degrees or professions. We would’ve wanted to practice our profession but practicing it without getting paid (volunteer nurse) is absurd; with that, we seek for solace and security on jobs that would feed us.
Now, I am just depending on that light on the end of the tunnel, the single spark of hope to rekindle my cold dream. The dream that one day, I could perk up and proudly say I’m a nurse.