(MANILA BULLETIN)

Quezon City 4th district Rep. Marvin Rillo says there is no assurance that the latest batch of nurses in the Philippines will practice their profession in the country, if at all.

“Largely due to the pressure to survive, some of them will likely try to seek immediate employment, even if it means taking on other jobs and not practicing nursing,” he said in a statement on Thursday, Jan. 2.

Rillo, a vice chairperson of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education, noted that some nurses have ended up working as real estate agents, insurance agents, or car sales agents. He said others pursued careers in business process outsourcing (BPO).

“We are not paying our new nurses enough to encourage them to practice their profession,” he explained.

According to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), the Philippines produced a total of 37,098 new registered nurses in 2024. This is a slight increase from the 36,525 produced in 2023.

Rillo, however, pointed out that these numbers were low compared to the average of 63,800 new nurses that the country annually produced more than a decade ago.

Among the new nurses, the lawmaker observed that a “significant number” of them have already set their sights on overseas employment.

He said this was a contributing factor to the growing shortage of nurses in the Philippines.

Based on data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the country is facing a shortage of 127,000 nurses. 

If left unchecked, the shortage is expected to increase to 250,000 by 2030.

“We must invest more in our nurses if we want to retain some of them in the local health sector,” Rillo stressed.

The Quezon City solon has authored House Bill (HB) No. 5276, which aims to increase the basic monthly pay of entry-level nurses in government hospitals by 74 percent, or to P70,013 (Salary Grade 21).

Currently, entry-level nurses at Department of Health (DOH) hospitals receive P40,208 (Salary Grade 15) in basic monthly pay.

In the Senate, Senator Raffy Tulfo is also pushing for the passage of his Senate Bill (SB) No. 2694, which seeks to increase the basic pay of entry-level nurses in public health institutions by 40 percent, or to P56,390 (Salary Grade 19).