89,000 took the November 2008 Nursing Board Exam

More than 89,000 nursing graduates across the country took the Nursing Licensure Examination on Saturday, a record number according to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). The PRC Board of Nursing said the number of examinees is the largest in the country’s history.
Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) president Dr. Leah Paquiz said they are expecting a 43percent passing rate for this weekend’s examination, or an estimated 38,000 new nurses by January 2009.
The only problem, Paquiz said, is how these new nurses would find work in the country.
She said the Philippines has an “oversupply” of nurses, while its Asian neighbors such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan, as well as European and North American countries, are in short supply of nurses.
Paquiz said the Philippines could help these countries in addressing their nursing problems, but for Filipino nurses to go abroad they should first have two years’ experience in the country – which now poses a problem, since both public and private hospitals do not hire new nurses regularly.
Even with an “oversupply” of nurses, the current nurse-to-patient ratio in the country is 1nurse to 160 to 180 patients.
The PNA said this is an alarming situation because this could affect the performance of Filipino nurses.
The PNA has appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) and private hospitals to increase their hiring of new nurses to help new nursing graduates find work. — ABS-CBN News