The Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) has expressed disapproval over Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello's proposal to scrap board exams for nurses.
In an interview over DZBB, PNA National President Melbert Reyes said the association and the Board of Nursing "immediately rejected" Bello's proposal when he raised it during a meeting on the health worker deployment ban.
"We disagreed with the proposal, it needs to be studied if ever. Yung board exam kasi serves as the second balance to check for the quality of the education. Hindi naman lahat ng school pare-pareho, merong mga fly-by-night (Not all schools are the same, there are fly-by-night schools)," Reyes said.
"Sa nursing hindi pwede yan and other medical courses, buhay kasi yung hinahawakan namin (That's not possible in nursing and othe rmedical courses, because we handle human lives). We need to ensure that health professionals are competent enough" he stressed.
On Wednesday, July 7, Bello floated the idea of scrapping licensure exams, especially for nursing and law, arguing that people seeking to enter professions where these are needed have already gone "through a lot of exams" in college.