CGFNS urges re-take of June 2006 nursing exam

The Philadelphia-based Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS International) announced Thursday that Filipino nursing graduates who passed the leakage-marred June 2006 nursing licensure examination are not eligible for a VisaScreen Certificate. In its website (www.cgfns.org), CGFNS urged Philippine authorities to “provide an opportunity for re-take of tests (3 and 5) without surrender of licensure" so that the June 2006 passers may qualify for the VisaScreen Certificate. The VisaScreen Certificate is a requirement to apply for a nursing or related job in the US. Only a "selective" re-take of the compromised nursing licensure exam was conducted on December 2 and 3, 2006 involving 1,687 passers in the June 2006 exam from review centers where leakage of test manuscripts were reported. CGFNS is an internationally recognized authority on credentials evaluation and verification pertaining to the education, registration and licensure of nurses and healthcare professionals worldwide. It is an immigration-neutral, nonprofit organization with 30 years of experience in certifying the credentials of over 450,000 internationally educated nurses and other healthcare workers. CGFNS said the decision to disqualify the June 2006 nursing licensure passers from the VisaScreen Certificate was arrived at “after careful consideration" and “made in support of this critical mission of CGFNS." It said it investigated the leakage “soon after the first reports of irregularities were received" and sent a fact-finding mission to the Philippines in September 2006. “CGFNS has concluded that the licensure process for those who received their license as a result of passing the compromised June 2006 licensure examination raises significant questions about the accurate assessment of the competencies of many of those individuals," the announcement said. “CGFNS is unable to certify that the licensure is comparable to a U.S. license. In this instance, applicable U.S. immigration law will not permit CGFNS to issue the VisaScreen Certificate required of internationally educated health care workers to those nurses who obtained Philippine licensure on the basis of passing the June 2006 nursing licensure examination," it explained. However, CGFNS noted that the June 2006 passers “are able to overcome this bar and qualify for a VisaScreen Certificate by taking the equivalent of Tests 3 and 5 on a future licensing examination administered by Philippine regulatory authorities and obtaining a passing score." “Consequently, CGFNS urges the Philippine authorities to provide an opportunity for re-take of those tests without surrender of licensure so that the June 2006 passers may qualify for the VisaScreen Certificate," it said. “The integrity of foreign licensing systems ultimately affects the health and safety of patients in the United States, a primary consideration of CGFNS in its role in evaluating candidates under U.S. immigration law," the announcement further said. All 17,323 passers in the June 2006 nursing licensure exam had been sworn in as licensed nurses on the basis of a decision by the Court of Appeals in October. Some 1,687 of the passers from review centers where the leakage allegedly happened re-took Tests 3 (Medical Surgical Nursing) and 5 (Psychiatric Mental Health) last December 2 and 3, along with the regular batch of new examinees. It was not immediately clear if the CGFNS-suggested re-take would still include those who already re-took the exam in December 2006. This developed as Malacanang welcomed the news that the United States National Council of State Boards of Nursing has allowed the holding of its licensure nursing examination in Manila That means thousands of Filipino nurses hoping to work in the US will no longer have to travel abroad to take licensing exams. "This is very good news for Filipino nurses, nursing students and the nursing profession," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said in a statement. "This is a landmark in the history of the Filipino nursing profession." Bunye said this development would trranslate into "huge savings and great convenience" for Filipino nurses hoping to land a job in the U.S. Nurses from the Philippines — the largest source of foreign-registered nurses in U.S. hospitals and healthcare facilities — have to travel to Hong Kong or other Asian cities to take the exams, Bunye said. Jennifer Gonzales, deputy executive director of the Commission for Overseas Filipinos, said the first testing center is expected to be established within six months. About 25,518 Filipino nurses holding combined immigrant visas and work permits traveled to the US to work between 1988 and May 2006, according to the council. Adding those holding only working visas would push the number much higher, Gonzales said. An earlier plan to allow Filipinos to take the exams at home was aborted following a cheating scandal in the local nursing board exams last year, in which questions from two of five test subjects were leaked. More than 17,323 of the over 42,000 who took the exams in June passed, but the Court of Appeals ordered 1,687 to retake the tests in December, said Leonor Rosero, head of the Professional Regulation Commission. Only 1,200 took the exams again and about 1,000 passed, she said. At least 19 people — two nursing board examiners and 17 officers of test review centers — are facing criminal charges in connection with the leaks, said Elfren Meneses, chief of the anti-fraud and computer crimes division of the National Bureau of Investigation. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration reported 7,768 nurses went abroad to work in 2005, down from 12,822 in 2001. The top six countries that employ Filipino nurses are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Taiwan, Ireland and the United States. -GMANews.TV, with reports from AP