90,000 foreign nurses coming soon?

[imported_Aaron C.]

Backroom negotiations underway to bring 90,000 MORE foreign NURSES next year

We've just learned that the other Texas Republican Senator (Kay Bailey Hutchison) is negotiating furiously to pass a foreign nurses bill tonight.

While Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) remains stymied in passing his bill to increase overall skilled workers by several hundred thousand next year, Hutchison is greasing the skids for another slam against American nurses.

CALL YOUR TWO SENATORS -- NOW!!!!

Capitol Switchboard
202-224-3121

Choose from the following in what to say:

1. I just heard that Sen. Hutchison is nearing a deal to import another 90,000 foreign nurses next year.

2. I oppose yet another effort to undercut the wages and working conditions of American nurses.

3. The country has tens of thousands of trained nurses who are waiting for working conditions to improve before returning to their field. If you keep importing foreign nurses, the improvement will never happen.

4. Unless you want to stop American girls and boys from pursuing nursing careers in the future, you must stop turning it into a foreign profession.

5. Sen. Hutchison's chronic efforts to flood the country with foreign nurses are thwarting the ability of the free-market system to entice and reward career choices based on what skills are needed by our society. Sen. Hutchison is ruining the nursing profession year by year.

6. Adjourn, end this Congress and go home without adding ANY more foreign workers of any kind.

7. Many politicians such as Sen. Hutchison seem to believe that because nursing is a tough, demanding job that the pay and working conditions should be constantly undermined and that only "foreign serfs" should do the work. That is a terrible principle. In our society, the tougher the job and the more difficulty in filling it, the more pay should increase and the more employers should strive to improve the working conditions. Efforts like Sen. Hutchison's represent an unethical kind of classism that should be repugnant in a 21st century American Congress.

If you are reading this, please call -- because most people won't see this email in time!

EXTRA CREDIT ACTIVITY

After you have called your two Senators, we have a few very special leaders who need extra calls, if you have time, and especially if you live in their state or region:

Senate Majority Leader Frist (R-TN)
Senate Majority Whip McConnell (R-KY)
Senate Minority Leader Reid (D-NV)
Senate Minority Whip Durbin (D-IL)
House Speaker Hastert (R-IL)
House Majority Leader Boehner (R-OH)
House Majority Whip Blunt (R-MO)
House Minority Leader Pelosi (D-CA)
House Minority Whip Hoyer (D-MD)
Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter (R-PA)
Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Leahy (D-VT)
House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
House Judiciary Ranking Member Conyers (D-MI)

I certainly hope you Texans are doing everything you can to let your two Senators know how disappointed you are them. MAKE SURE THEIR HOME STATE OFFICES ARE GETTING A LOT OF CALLS, TOO.

Let's not let all of our American nurses (both native-born and foreign-born) down. They deserve the support of all of us in this moment of great threat.

Sen. Hutchison has succeeded in sneaking through similar giant increases in foreign nurses in past years. She has to be competing for the title of the Most Anti-Nurse Person in America.

THANKS FOR JUST A FEW MORE PHONE CALLS BEFORE CONGRESS LEAVES TOWN,

-- ROY

P.S. You all have done a remarkable job of keeping the phones busy all day today in the Senate on the Cornyn H-1B bill.

The word we had from many congressional staffers today is that the tech industry lobbyists -- especially Microsoft lobbyists -- are fit to be tied. They cannot believe that so many Members whom they thought they had purchased with campaign contributions are standing up against them on this bill. You know the only reason they are standing up is because of your pressure/support. We are told that the lobbyists have begun calling some congressional offices in tirades hurling all kinds of threats about the future.

You've held them off this long. Keep the pressure today until the switchboards close. Our goal is that the House will leave town later this evening before the Senate has passed Cornyn or Hutchison and we will have won. Although the Senate likely will be in session tomorrow, it won't do any good for them to pass something that the House has not already passed, since the House won't be around to vote on anything after it leaves town.

AN EXAMPLE OF MANY EMAILS FROM VICTIMIZED AMERICANS

"In response to those who are hestitant about opposing H-1B.

"In the next five years my wife, a nurse for 32 years and still working for another 10, and I will have spent/borrowed over $250,000 to educate my son as an engineer and daughter as a nurse.

"My family has been here since the 1850's and my wife's family since 1880's. Our kids have worked extremely hard and our family has sacrificed much for them to achieve their goals. They have suffered much from immigration. A fair number of our professional friends and associates have lost their jobs and careers because of technical foreign workers working for less pay.

"I support education anywhere in the world and welcome people who want to be educated here but we are flooded by those who stay.

"Remind politicans they work for us and not for themselves."
----------Kevin McCann

[hsieh]

can the foriegn nurses pass the nclex?

[Tiredofthesystem]

I sent this to 80 people. Good lookin out Uncle Short

[GypsyNursetoo]

Do they know how to use the Drug Book? Uh, NO... They also do not know (at least the ones I have worked with) that there are two names for meds (generic and brand name, oh and that there are more then one brand names)... YIKES!

[SoldierNurse]

can the foriegn nurses pass the nclex?

Per HealthStar International Inc.; The Foreign Educated professional must:

Obtain one of the following:
For RN/PT/OT: Visa Screen from CGFNS which can be obtained upon demonstration of the following;
Education is comparable to US Education
All licenses are valid and unencumbered
Unless exempt, passing scores on required English language exams
For nurses: passing scores on either the CGFNS Qualifying Exam or the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX-RN)

For PT only: Certificate from FCCPT (Foreign Credentialing Commission on Physical Therapy) which can be obtained upon demonstration of the following;
Education is comparable to US Education
All licenses are valid and unencumbered
Unless exempt, passing scores on required English language exams

For OT only: Visa Credential Verification Certificate (VCVC) from the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) which can be obtained upon demonstration of the following;
Education is comparable to US Education
All licenses are valid and unencumbered
Unless exempt, passing scored on required English language exams
Passing scores on the Occupational Therapist Registered Certification Exam

* Originally posted by Sylvia321 on a similar Thread

[Noni]

Pardon my wordiness, I know I’m a newbie, but this is a sore spot for me and one I am well acquainted with. I’m not in fear of the foreign nurses…for any reason… other than patient safety. It's a sad situation, but a typical reaction from government for the sake of big business. And we all know that health care is BIG, BIG business. Foreign recruitment will not only hurt the American nurses, but the patients as well. I’ve seen it first hand. And lest we forget, they are the whole reason that any of us health care professional exist! They are our first priority, not our pay scales. With that mentality, we are no better than the government or big business.
One very renown mega-hospital system (which shall remain nameless) brought in a flood of nurses from the Philippines. Most of them left as soon as their contracts were up. A lot broke camp, paid the $8K, and left to go in search of something better. Some even paid the $8K and paid their own way back home. One that I know of, countersued the hospital when they tried to sue her, won her case and is now working in Nevada. At first I welcomed them because I saw it only as more staff. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t have anything personal against them…what I am relating to you is only what I’ve experienced on a professional basis. I made friends with them and tried to help them. I have a good relationship with everyone that I’ve come in contact with. They are shy, unassuming and frightened by being so far from home, many completely alone. Most of them are very sweet, but they are way out of their league, here, and until they get acclimated they are down right dangerous! I’ve told them that and they admit to it. But it's not all their fault! Most of them feel like they were lied to, in order to get them to come here. They were told of the “status” and pay of American nurses…and if I was treated and paid the way they tell me they are, in the Philippines, I’d want something better, too! It takes a lot of guts to pack up and leave everything you’ve ever known to go someplace and start all over. It’s hard enough from state to state, much less from country to country. They even had to deal with climate changes, so drastic that many of them got really sick during their first winter here. Even though they are BSN’s, nursing in their country is very different, according to them. Here, we do it all. There, they pass meds, do treatments and paperwork. They do not give bedpans or deal with "such menial tasks", which adds to their inability to show compassion. They are about the facts, patient rapport is a non-entity to most of them! Most are completely overwhelmed by the differences in our culture. It’s a mighty big plate set before them. One nurse told me that when she came through customs, she was told to be wary of "blacks" and so she used to try to trade off her black patients because she was scared to death of them! Thank God she’s over that now! With that kind of prejudice placed on them as soon as they get here, it’s no wonder they are not held in very high esteem and probably why so many American patients dislike them. Many patients don't want them because of language difficulties, also. They say they learned English in school and even did their nursing studies in English, but most speak Tagalog or their dialects when they are together. That doesn’t bother me, because I understand what it’s like to be in a foreign country and to find someone that speaks your language, but a lot of American nurses are resentful of that. They have been brought up in an environment where they don’t have LPN’s or nursing assistants so the family stays with the patient and does most of the direct, hands-on patient care and the “menial things”. They only do it for patients that have no families to care for them…and family structure and loyalties are very different there. Many of them live on pennies and send their money home to educate younger siblings so they can get away too, because their government is so corrupted. But on the negative side, I have seen them leave patients in their own excrement for the entire night while they stay glued to their seats to finish paperwork and research charts. (It's a wonder they don't get pressure sores on their own bottoms) And for what? The accents are so strong that a taped report is still difficult to understand.
They look good to the administrators because they get off on time, have all the paperwork finished and the patients look great in the morning, at first glance, but they still get bedsores, fungal infections and excoriated bottoms. You can’t fix 12 hours of neglect with one bed bath. They have their 11-7 charting completed by 10pm. When it's time to leave, they're gone...whether anybody is out there on the floors or not! Of the few nursing assistants we do have, even fewer know their backsides from a hole in the ground. Most are not state tested, feel autonomous to the nurses and act as if they can’t take vital signs without a “Dinamapp”. Leaving them and a secretary as the only ones available to patients, on a monitored cardiac unit is unacceptable. That hospital didn’t use monitor techs, the nurses had to take turns every 30 minutes to watch monitors. And there was a paper that was signed that validated your time at the monitor. If the supervisor ever checked, they would find it completely filled out or blank until the end of the shift, as is the paper that documents hourly rounds, which is also documented in the nurses notes. Adding to the mounds of paperwork that take nurses from the bedside.
They are very good at starting IV's but one unit (that the night shift is entirely Philippino) caught three lawsuits in less than 6 months because of phlebitis and subsequent blood clots. (Something that never happened on that unit before they came) I have even had one tell me they didn’t stop the infiltrated IV, because nobody, including the house officer, could start another one, (He forgot to tell her to call surgical house, to get a central line placed!) so she left that one running so the patient would be able to get his IV antibiotics! One lady lost her arm from the mid upper arm, down. So they came up with this paper to validate walking rounds to check IV's to document that the previous nurses did what they were supposed to do! That paper is also signed before they leave and the following shift fills in their part when they get the time. More BS paperwork and administration calls it accountability! Nobody made walking rounds at all. It was a QA tool, according to the head nurse. When I tried to get people to do walking rounds with me, they told me “just sign your part, I’ll get mine when I do my rounds. I have to get to report!” (And that wasn’t just the Philippino nurses!) Report consists of reading the Kardex, labs marked as abnormal on the lab reports, and X Ray reports of the day…even if they’re only minutely off! I went to college. I can read! I don’t know if the patient is ambulatory or comatose until I do my rounds.
They have no concept of teamwork. In a code, they will get the crash cart, bring it to the room and wait for the "code team" to respond. Even if there is a "code team”, you still have to start CPR! They are very obedient, question nothing and do whatever they are told to do for fear of losing their jobs, paying back that $8K, and being sent back.. Their critical thinking skills suck!.
When the monitors alarm, they will stand around discussing what's on the monitor screen (even with lethal alarms)...and never think to check the patient. I was appalled to learn that the hospital gave them a one day class in reading monitors and an ACLS class that is only 2 days and then they’re on their own. The hospital has no qualms about putting 1-2 newly credentialed nurses on the floor with no experienced nurse with them. Then they’ll float someone who is not trained in monitors or ACLS certified to make up the difference in the already tight staffing grid. I've seen two patients die as a direct result of that technical fancy footwork, complements of staffing personnel that don’t know the first thing about what reality is on the floors. But they follow the guidelines and it fit!.
I understand that paperwork is essential because you need to, not only cover your own backside, but your hospital's as well. But, then again, if we were really about proper care of the patients, the hospital wouldn't have to worry about so many lawsuits, now would they!?!
In all fairness to them, given time (9 months to a year), they will make the necessary adjustments…if they last that long. Most are young and many of them get pregnant to have American babies and solidify their right to stay here. They are legal and I’m told, by them, that their babies make it so they don’t have to worry about being sent back home if they break their contracts. They have the mentalities of the illegal aliens, even though they’re legal. Somebody has put that fear into them. I don’t know who!.
The problems in nursing cannot be fixed by bringing in more foreign nurses. It’s not even about more money! Staffing is going to have to be regulated on a level higher than the hospital itself. They cannot be trusted to do what is right because unfortunately, they are profit driven, not care driven. It’s all about a paperwork game with the insurance companies. Very few deal in reality at all.. This is not a quick fix type of problem. And that’s all this influx of bodies with licenses is about. The quality of health care in this country is on the downslide. But if we don’t stand up for it, who will? Maybe a good lawsuit from a government official might help make people see reality. But when they go into the hospital it’s all about kissing his behind. Use to be a time when if the patient came into the hospital, he got your best, no matter who he was. Now it’s all about the money! It usually takes something tragic to happen to one of them, so the media can blab it. Then they will listen. But what about the little guy. Where are his rights? The ones that keep the politicians in those positions and pay our bills. The heck with lobbyists!. Make them do the right thing! There’s more of us then there are of them. Keep up the pressure… YOUR life, or the life of your loved ones may very well depend on it. OK! Now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, I promise I’ll keep my mouth shut after this for a while!

[Tiredofthesystem]

That was an excellent post. Most are afraid to state so much truth. This took courage and Im sure will help create a higher awareness.