How it feels like to be a nurse in the Philippines
Generally, nursing students in the Philippines decide to take up nursing for the hopes of working abroad or to pursue higher studies such as medicine. No one takes up nursing and says: “I wanna work here in the Philippines”.
How much do nurses in the Philippines earn?
Before we even talk about how much these nurses earn, the question is, do they earn in the first place?
Nurses in the Philippines, especially new board exam passers has to go through a lot of stress before landing a paying nursing job.
First, they have to volunteer. Hospitals in the Philippines requires new nurses to undergo “training” which is basically doing everything that a nurse does without getting paid. They do the dirty stuff too. For 6 months, you will be spending money for your daily expenses such as food. You are basically working for something that you were trained for, for free.
After 6 months of volunteering, if lucky, the nurse will become a probe or a staff nurse. Now, if you’re a probe or a staff nurse, you will be earning around 250 pesos (5 USD) per 8 hours of work. To make this relevant, laborers such as carpenters in the Philippines earn as much as 400 pesos (8 USD) a day. This usually happens on private hospitals.
On Government hospitals, with enough “backers”, you can get a high paying position that starts at 18,000 pesos (350 USD) per month. Don’t get me wrong, 18,000 is a good sum of money if you don’t have a family to support.
This is why you’ll see Filipino nurses everywhere in the world; Philippines can’t support the nurses that they create.
