Filtered By: Topstories
News

Pinoy nurses: Canada's program 'exploitative'


MANILA, Philippines - A group of Filipino nurses has asked Canada to scrap its Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), saying it is exploitative and oppressive. The Filipino Nurses Support Group (FNSG), an organization of over 800 nurses in Canada’s provinces of British Columbia and Quebec, said the program has resulted in Filipino nurses being made to work as domestic workers and 24-hour home support workers. “The LCP imports Filipino nurses into a program of modern-day slavery, economic marginalization, de-skilling, and stalled development," it said in a statement on Monday. Since the 1990s, Filipino nurses have come to Canada not to work as registered nurses but as caregivers. It was in 1992 that Canada changed its Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM), a childcare or nanny program, into the LCP that includes care for elderly and disabled Canadians. During the same time, Canada’s Immigration Department made it impossible for nurses to immigrate into the said country as permanent residents, leaving the nurses no choice but to come under the caregiver program. FNSG said it had documented many Filipino nurses who earn as little as $1.50 or about P70 per hour under the LCP, which differs quite largely from British Columbia’s $8 or almost P390 per hour minimum wage and the registered nurses’ starting wage of $28 or more than P1,350 per hour. “Filipino nurses under the LCP are stripped of their professional skills, education, and dignity as they cook, clean, provide personal care, and give medications for families wealthy enough who can afford private live-in care," said the group. It also said Filipino nurses face discriminatory and lengthy accreditation processes that prevent them from practicing their profession as soon as possible. “Immigration and accreditation barriers that Filipino nurses face purposefully segregate them into a pool of cheap labor," the group said. FNSG said it will continue to call for the scrapping of the LCP and for the Canadian government to fully recognize Filipino nurses through reciprocity agreements. FNSG said the Canadian Nurses Association predicts a nursing shortage of 78,000 registered nurses by 2011 and 113,000 registered nurses by 2016. - GMANews.TV
LOADING CONTENT