A Difference of 8000 Miles

When the distance between the place you call home and a promising nursing career is...
A Difference of 8000 Miles

From “STBH Fall Annual 2007”

The city of Legazpi lies 556 km south of Manila, capital city of The Philippines, and in the shadow of the active Mayon Volcano, in the country’s Bikol region. With a population of around 160,000, Legazpi City is the political center of the Bikol region and a vital shipping port at the southern tip of the Albay Gulf. Within this booming region among the Philippine islands, residents of Legazpi City have witnessed a twenty year renaissance fueled by a population burst, economic growth, and the construction of Legazpi Airport.

Still, the city pales in comparison to even the smallest metropolis in more developed nations, and its people’s aspirations often exceed those which the quality of life will allow – a dilemma consistent throughout Third World countries like the Philippines.

In contrast, the United States remains a land of opportunity long considered the melting pot of nations far and wide, with the ability to meet many of those aspirations. But the process can be a challenge for Filipinos, and those of many other countries, surpassed only by determination and complicated by time, money, and most of all, emotion.

SEEKING RELIEF

In the 1960s and 70s, nursing schools across the U.S. – including our own at St. Bernard Hospital – began to close their doors as clinical experience became less a requirement for book smart, academic nurses. Interest in nursing careers began to diminish, and a gradual shortage of registered nurses put a strain on hospitals across the country. By the 1980s, the lack of nurses was in a critical stage.

Fast forward to 1999, when Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) authored legislation to address an ongoing shortage of nurses by temporarily providing non-immigrant visas for qualified foreign nurses. On the forefront of St. Bernard’s supporting role was Vice President of Patient Care Services Ronald Campbell, then a 14- year veteran of the hospital and now in his 23rd year of service in Englewood.

“We traveled back and forth to Washington,” Campbell remembers, a lobbying effort that finally found its way to President Clinton in 1999, and then through the strict Rules Committee. It was not until late 2001 – weeks after 9/11 – that the benefits of The Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act of 1999 were evident. A simple phone call announced quite suddenly that nurses were en route from abroad. “We’d celebrated the passing of the bill, but then lost a little hope after 9/11,” Campbell recalls. “We were quite surprised when we got that call.”

Now eight years after the legislation was signed, the Nursing Relief Act has since been renewed, providing prospective nurses with the necessary H1-C work visa, and allowing qualified hospitals like St. Bernard to employ some of the 500 Registered Nurses who qualify each year.

FAMILY TIES

“Philippine culture is family,” says Virgilio Nidea, native of Legazpi City and a registered nurse at St. Bernard Hospital. The way to a better life for his family, he says, “was to pursue a career and help people, because that helps my family and their standard of living.”

Within The Philippines, a rigorous four-year nursing degree program exceeds that of their American counterparts, yet salaries are considerably sub-standard by comparison and a lack of respect for Philippine nurses prevails, even among the physicians they support. Here in the United States, a nursing career is more lucrative, and the ability to generate more income not just for themselves, but also their family, is a driving motivator behind the decision to leave the islands and relocate to the west.

In most cases, the avenues are complicated and the process requires boundless patience, energy, and sometimes cash.

“People go to the US Embassy and get in line at 4am,” Nidea recalls, “and they don’t even open until 8am. There are so many people (who want to live and work in the U.S.). It takes months, sometimes years to be approved to come here.”

An Illinois nursing license is required to take part in the H1-C program at St. Bernard, itself once a complicated process that involved travel from the Philippines to Hong Kong, Guam, or Saipan for testing. This summer, the testing process became available within the Philippines, a significant aid to those seeking employment in Chicago.

Nidea spent about a year in the process during the 1990s, working through a placement agency while taking part in required seminars, interviews, and physical exams before finally winning approval and leaving for the United States. Others are not as lucky, falling victim to scam artists who pose as representatives of qualified agencies. “Some (prospective nurses) sell their property for a chance to afford the opportunity,” Nidea says, only to find that their agency is bogus and they have been left with nearly nothing.

FINDING OPPORTUNITY

Through its web site, www.stbh.org, St. Bernard consistently receives inquiries from prospective nurses across the globe (see graphic), eager for sponsorship in the United States. Many have already come to the United States from abroad to study and earn nursing degrees, then petition American hospitals for a 3-year contract in order to remain in the States. Others begin abroad, eager to come to the U.S. and enter a program which, in part, requires them to work at St. Bernard for the duration of a 4-year agreement.

Since 2001, more than 200 nurses have come to St. Bernard with an H1-C visa, including the maximum allowed in 2005. By law, the hospital is limited to fifty participating nurses per year, and between 2001 and 2005, the number of nurses coming to Chicago via H1-C reached or approached applicable limitations.

“The program has been very productive, very rewarding,” says LuLu Cervantes, the principal Recruiter for St. Bernard’s Patient Care Services, who now sees interest coming not just from Asia, but from across the international landscape. “It’s been a tremendous help. The hospital embraced this program and helped to have it extended (currently, until 2010). Anybody I put at St. Bernard, they can build a foundation there.”

THE GREATEST GIFT

Despite the challenges, the homesickness, and the unfamiliar surroundings, nurses who come to St. Bernard Hospital from foreign lands find ways to carve out a new life in the United States. New friendships have been forged. Some have married. Some have been promoted, while others have moved on to other hospitals or determined to build their careers right here in the Midwest - 8000 miles from what they know as home.

St. Bernard regularly welcomes eager, talented nurses who begin a new life here on Chicago’s South Side. What the nurses receive in return is perhaps the most valuable gift of all.

Says Nidea, who now lives and works with his wife Theresa: “The greatest thing I experience here is freedom.”