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The shortage of nurses in Philippine government hospitals is expected to get worse by what Quezon City 4th district Rep. Marvin Rillo describes as the “exceptionally strong demand” for Filipino nurses in the United States (US). “To address their own shortages, American hospitals and staffing agencies are now aggressively recruiting Filipino nurses,” Rillo said in a statement Monday, June 26 as he warned the government about the situation. According to the rookie congressman, even Filipino nurses already working in the Middle East are being lured to relocate to Texas and California, among other American states. “In America, Filipino nurses are favored because of their close affinity to the Western culture, competence, compassion, and their readiness to work long hours and take on extra shifts even during weekends and holidays,” Rillo pointed out. Nurses in the US receive an annual median wage of $77,600, or the equivalent of around P4.3 million, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Rillo, a House Committee on Higher and Technical Education vice chairperson, reiterated that Congress must quickly raise the basic salaries of local nurses here at home. "This is the only way we can hold on to our nurses in public hospitals." The Quezon City solon has been batting for the passage of his measure – House Bill (HB) No. 5276 – that seeks to bump up to P63,997 the entry-level monthly pay of nurses employed by the government. Over in the Senate, which is the other legislative body in the bicameral Congress, Senator Sonny Angara has filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 638, which seeks to raise to P51,357 the starting monthly salary of public nurses. The starting monthly wage of public nurses is currently pegged at only P36,619 under the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002 and the Salary Standardization Law of 2019. The US BLS projects that America will have “about 203,200 job openings for registered nurses each year, on average, over the next decade". “Many of the openings are expected to result from the need to replace nurses who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire,” it said. Rillo said many nursing graduates that have decided to stay in the country are shifting to other occupations to survive economically. “We actually have many nurses employed by local airlines and business process outsourcing firms, or selling real estate, insurance, and even cars, where they tend to earn more,” he said.