When we say safety, usually the first thing that comes into our minds is being safe from fatal accidents such as a car accident, gun shot, drowning, etc. On a nurse’s side, little did others know that a simple needlestick from a needle used to a HIV or Hep B or C positive patient is as fatal as the ones mentioned. While the former may instantly kill, the later would linger and would slowly lead to your demise.

As to the context of accidents and safety, an accident doesn’t always have to be so much bloody and serious; a pain brought by a mere fall could be called one. Let’s take for example a nurse working in the psychiatric unit; mentally challenged patients roam around the unit and their unpredictability is a threat. Sometimes nurses become ambivalent on restraints and morality issues because they don’t really know when these patients’ hostility would fire up. So when an unrestrained patient becomes uncontrollably hostile, accidents may follow involving both the patient and the attending nurse.

As a nurse, I believe a well digested education is the fulcrum to keep us fluent amidst work-related hazards; moreover, it will serve as a shield to protect us from the same. When we pledged to become nurses we also submitted ourselves to the consequences imposed by the profession…… But do we always have to cling and depend on these decrepit facts? Although, those may be facts but don’t you think we need more concrete and sturdy ones?

In the year 2007 I flew to the US. I was one of the few who were lucky to have been granted a job in the said country. But despite my confidence there’s still a fair amount of fear that daunted me: being all by myself. Adjusting in my new life in the foreign country was by far the most challenging. All the pressure was in me. I felt ashamed because it seemed like I was the smallest in the block. Imagine, the Americans were so tall and it often make me feel so detached being with them; very intimidating. I could honestly say that my confidence is slowly wearing-out. Maybe they were thinking that I can only perform limited works because of my height. But I was wrong. They respected me just like the rest of the members of the medical team. They commend my skills and even looked up on my capabilities. I realized, height, after all, does not matter. What matters is your performance, how you connect with your colleagues and how you deal with the stresses brought by your work.

True enough, height is might; but that ain’t matter to me…

Since 2005, shortage of nurses has been foreseen to reach up to 260,000 in the entire country. To this end, studies show that the nursing shortage poses a considerably huge threat to the healthcare system of the country. One of the foreseen problems is when the older nurses retire, few if not none will fill in the space that they would leave behind.

Reasons point toward the unstable economy that incites the hospitals to suspend their hiring of nurses and a lack of nursing school graduates. Results of a certain study suggest that at least 50% of nurses in the US are planning to retire between the year 2011 and 2020.

This may be a good news to foreign nurses like Filipinos who have been yearning to work in the said country. One of the measures that authorities of the country may consider is to hire foreign educated nurses to address the shortage.

Unfair isn’t it? The well-off nurses are the first ones to go abroad and taste the more idyllic kind of life whereas the poverty-stricken nurses who badly need those handsomely- paying jobs are still pathetically stranded here in our unproductive country. Talk about money making the world go round, student visa is considered as the most popular way being used by Filipino nurses to penetrate productive countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. But the placement and processing fees involve an unthinkably vast amount of money. An amount visible only to the bank accounts of the well-to-do. If you have the money, then might as well practice the British or Aussie twang; but if you don’t….. :-/

I found out it was only for formality’s sake that I was made to read all those guidelines; bogus guidelines. I was out there on my own, guarding my every move cause a single mistake might cost the patient’s life—-or mine.

Dreaming comes for free, but working on that dream is the real deal. The fruits of your labor may not be very evident in the present but certainly it will yield succulent fruits in the future.

I am really at a loss as to how other professionals are able to work immediately with high wages while nurses, who I think, performs one of the most edgy works could not even buy a nice pair of shoes. It feels like we are poor monkeys roaming around the jungle looking for food in order to survive. That’s why not all RN’s are working in the hospital because they would rather choose to work in other fields which could pay them beautifully.

It’s just so sad to think that we are, all the time, referred to as warriors of health but not treated well in terms of salary. Remuneration which is supposed to be suited to the kind of work we render.

A part from the heavenly “falling in love”, and the heart-shattering heartaches is the unanswered question that keeps on bombarding my mind and makes me quiver—what really is in store for me in the future regarding my career? You know that feeling of emptiness; the feeling wherein nothing really makes you proud?

My age would step a year higher soon; I’m old and my supposed (what I believe) “personal legend” is lost in nowhere. What’s worse is that I’m not really sure if it’s lost or has no really plans of revealing itself to me. It keeps me thinking: am I really meant to become a nurse or my niche is sculpted on the walls of other professions? My life has seemed to run out of beautiful stories.

Truly, I hope and pray that something interesting and beautiful would happen to my career this coming year, something gratifying, something worth embracing, something…

I used to be that typical ragamuffin until my dad strike it rich. To cut it short, I was the living proof of Cinderella’s rags to riches.

I love them, thinking, they probably got my philosophy of “Because I’m worth it”,

I very so often get scrutinized for being so engrossed on the external. I just brush it off with my best alibi, “ It’s human nature to demand the best deal, the lion’s share, the most credit, and the finest of everything”. That wasn’t just it, I soon settled for “I deserve more” as a slogan to compensate for the efforts exerted rock bottom in the fun-and-often difficult-challenge of being a nursing student.

After graduation, I thought “tenuous work” was out of the scenario… I was proved wrong.

I still have to be an RN, and to assure it, I would need to go through reviews.

It was just like any other ordinary day. I was there first hour in the morning and as usual, I’m seated at the first row of seats…at the back.

Hours of lectures passed without much of it sinking in, except for me getting an A+ in distinguishing one cloth line from another within which others were on. I can’t wait to approach the lecturer after… not to ask for clarifications but to smell the scent she’s using. But somehow the look and feel of the room overwhelmed me.

The sad part is I have to deal with that. Hours became days that turned into weeks.

The BOARD EXAMS was barely a week off; I’ll start my story here. Basically, I was so distracted with everything that meets my eye, I can’t focus on what’s important.

A few days later, I took the board exam with wavering hope of getting through it.

I flunked anyway.

Don’t get me wrong guys… I have nothing against vanity but it’s me—just me. It took me quite a while to gather myself and get focused, “first things first”.

I’m a competitive ER nurse by now and I still wear Prada… I never had to give it up in the first place, I just have to keep my fancies from getting hold of me.

DEMI

Once regarded as one of the most glorious and progressive countries in Asia, the Philippines was placed second to Japan in terms of economic status besting other Asian countries like China and Singapore. It was truly a glistening pearl in the orient seas…. But that was long ago, things have changed dramatically. Currently, Japan remained atop most Asian countries; China, once the sleeping giant has metamorphosed into an economic giant, Singapore boasts of an unshakable economy and so with the other countries in Asia. The Philippines on the other hand is left behind and dived its way to the bottom of the roster.

The Filipinos remain steadfast amidst economic turmoil, political chaos, and poverty-induced tribulations. Most of the citizens are severely affected with poverty; nurses are not exempted in this problem. With the increasing rate of unemployment in our country, Filipino nurses are on their respective strategic maneuvers to combat the presenting problem so they may survive and uplift their families from the deep trenches of destitution. Unconsciously, from being patriotic they turned to being practical. And so, with love, hope and optimism they flew and rendered their services to other countries. But do these Filipino nurses really resorted to perfidy and totally despised the spirit of patriotism?

It’s not perfidy but love for their family that they chose to serve other nations in spite of cultural diversity, language barrier, forced solitude, and heartfelt longing—-SACRIFICE, to the strongest sense of the word. In the end, these sacrifices produced multi-fold benefits; because of the money they (and other overseas Filipino workers) send to their families in the Philippines, our country is saved from further degradation brought about by myriad and innumerable debts and thereby addressing our insolvency issues. This fact may not be in the minds of these modern day heroes when they’ve decided to work abroad but still in one way or another they haven’t totally turned their backs on our country.

There are a lot of ways to show and enact our loyalty to our country. It may not always be in the most pronounced and loud way, what is important is your effort to do so. In the case of overseas Filipino workers (that include nurses), it is love that led them to sacrifice and by these sacrifices they enacted patriotism by upholding the value of family—a pure and distinct FILIPINO quality.