Govt working to address demand for more nurses

THE Marcos administration is continuously addressing the need for more nurses in the country and abroad through more collaborations with the private sector, Private Sector Advisory Council-Healthcare Sector Group (PSAC-HSG) head Paolo Borromeo said on Wednesday.

Borromeo, president and CEO of the Ayala Healthcare Holdings Inc., gave an update on ongoing collaboration programs, along with the PSAC-HSG recommendation for the establishment of a resilient and responsive healthcare system, during its meeting with President Marcos Jr. and other concerned agencies in Malacañang last Wednesday.

Borromeo said that, among others, PSAC-HSG had teamed-up with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for the development of clinical care associates’ (CCA) program for under-board nurses or those who have nursing degrees but either failed or yet to take the nursing licensure examinations.

The program, he said, seeks to encourage both the public and private sectors to hire CCAs for a year, or look for the nursing under-boards in their respective institutions and enroll them in a review program to enable them to take the licensure examinations, the next of which is set in November this year.

He said the first batch of 457 CCAs is comprised of under-board nurses who are now reviewing for the licensure exams in seven higher educational institutions (HEIs).

Borromeo said recruitment is ongoing for the second batch of CCAs for the May 2025 board examinations.

“We continue to look for more CCAs around the country. It’s a work in progress, I think 457 additional nurses, assuming all of them will pass, will be a big addition to our list of nurses,” he said.

The Department of Health (DOH) estimated a shortage of 114,743 nurses in the Philippines as of December 2022 while the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) noted that only 53.55 percent of registered nurses are active and are practicing in the health sector.

A statement from the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) stated that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) have also been working to come up with bilateral agreements with other countries that are willing to subsidize the