September 21 Weekly Roundup: Small Victories
Things started falling into place the past days, as we witnessed increasing support for the immediate lifting of the deployment ban. Senator Joel Villanueva reiterated his position against it, and has even mentioned that he wrote two letters to the IATF regarding this. Former Senator JV Ejercito also called for its immediate lifting, even citing relevant statistics in his social media post. A few hours ago, President Duterte has finally approved the IATF’s most recent recommendation of extending the ban’s exemption cut-off date from March 8 to August 31. This means that health care workers whose contracts were perfected on or before August 31, 2020 will be allowed to fly overseas for employment.
Complementing this are even more positive news for nurses who are planning to fly to Saudi Arabia soon. The Kingdom’s Embassy in the Philippines has just started receiving work visa applications today through its labor export offices. VFS Tasheel, the organization assigned to take the biometric records of all Saudi-bound applicants, is slated to open on September 23 Wednesday with their new working hours of 9am to 3pm. With these, applicants are advised to have their visas and biometrics processed as soon as possible so that there flights to Saudi Arabia will not be delayed. Abba applicants may get in touch with their respective Recruiters for further details on this.
For those who wish to go to the United States, one of our U.S. clients Navicent Health may be the employer for you. This Magnet-recognized hospital in Georgia, U.S.A. is looking for NCLEX passer RNs who would like to work as Staff Nurses in its facility. If you are an NCLEX passer with at least 2 years of post-license experience in M/S, ER, OR or ICU and is currently employed in a hospital with at least 50 beds, then you are encouraged to apply. Simply email your CV to sandra.bitoon@abba.ph or sign-up at https://tinyurl.com/abbanavicenthealth. For questions or concerns, call Sandra through 0917-704 8327 / 0918-286 1919.
Today’s highlights could have been better, because there are things that we still need to work on. For one, the deployment ban is still in effect for health care workers whose contracts were perfected after August 31. This means that nurses and healthcare workers who haven’t applied abroad yet are still discouraged from doing so for an indefinite period of time. Another is that the DBM’s recently proposed salary increase for nurses only applies to the Nurse I position in government hospitals. This leaves nurses in other positions, such as Nurses II – VII, and in non-government institutions, with the same salary grades.
But small victories deserve to be celebrated. They may not be the big wins that we originally had in mind, but they can be the stepping stones that we need to be able to get there.
