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Simple Lang.... INCINERATOR |
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Thursday, 29 July 2010 03:24 |
Sa pagsisimula ng ika-15 Kongreso ay puspusan ang paghahahanda ng
iba’t ibang kagawaran ng mga panukalang batas na kanilang ilalako sa
mga kongresista at senador.
Isang panukala mula sa Kagawaran ng Kalusugan (DOH) ang mabilis na
hinadlangan ng mga grupong nagtataguyod ng kalusugang pampubliko at
pangkalikasan.
Ito ang panukalang rebisahin ang Clean Air Act (CAA) upang
pahintulutan ang mga sinasabing “clean incinerator” o mga mamahaling
makina na ginagamit na sunugan ng mga basura.
Sa ilalim ng CAA ay ipinagbabawal ang pagsusunog ng mga basura mula sa
mga bahay (solid waste), ospital (medical waste) at pabrika
(industrial waste), kasama ang mga peligrosong basura (toxic waste),
na naglalabas ng mga mapanganib at nakakalasong buga gaya ng dioxin,
ang pinakamapanganib na lasong kemikal na gawa ng tao.
Sa gitna ng pagtutol ng ilang negosyante at opisyales ng gobyerno ay
nanaig sa puso ng mga mambabatas ang kahalagahan na mapangalagaan ang
lipunan laban sa polusyon at gastos mula sa pagsusunog ng basura at
maitulak ang mga tunay na solusyon.
Pero, tulad ng mga makukulit na lamok, ay walang tigil ang
pagpupumilit ng iilan na palabnawin o tuwirang baguhin ang patakarang
ito na nakapaloob na sa dalawang pangunahing batas: ang CAA at ang
Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
Sa kanilang sulat kay Secretary Ona, ipinahayag ng Health Care Without
Harm, EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
at Greenpeace ang mariing pagtutol na baligtarin ang batas, laluna may
iba’t ibang ligtas, epektibo at hindi magastos na mga alternatibo
upang ekolohikal na mapangasiwaan ang iba’t ibang uri ng mga basura.
Peligroso ang panukala ng DOH na kung hindi babawiin ni Secretary Ona
ay posibleng magsilbing daan upang talikuran ang pambansang patakaran
kontra pagsusunog ng basura.
Mahirap maunawaan kung bakit itinutulak ito ng ilang kawani ng DOH
samantalang alam nila na taon-taon hanggan 2014 ay nagbabayad ang
Pilipinas sa Austria ng 2 milyong dolyar kada taon bilang bayad sa mga
depektibong incinerator na “high-tech” o “state of the art” daw na
napatunayan mismo sa pagsusuri ng DOH at WHO na nagbubuga ng
lampas-lampas na antas ng dioxin!
Sa isang talumpati nitong Hulyo 26 ay inisa-isa ni Annie Leonard
(tagapagbuo ng GAIA at aktibistang bida sa “The Story of Stuff”) ang
mga dahilan kung bakit hindi katanggap-tanggap ang mga incinerator.
Ilan sa kanyang mga nabanggit ang mga sumusunod:
a. Sinasayang ng mga incinerator ang mga materyales na maaari pa
sanang magamit muli o maibalik sa pabrika, merkado at sa kalikasan.
b. Nagbubuga ang mga makinang ito ng daan-daang mga lasong kemikal
tulad ng dioxin, mercury at iba pa, at lumilikha rin ng mapanganib na
abo na ibinabaon sa mga tambakan.
k.Hinihikayat nito ang patuloy na paglikha ng mga basura na
ipinapakain sa mga masisibang makina, at hinahadlangan ang pag-iisip
at pagpapatupad sa mga tunay na solusyon.
d. Nilalamon nito ang pampublikong pondo na dapat sana ay gamitin para
isulong ang lokal na ekonomiya, habang kakarampot lamang ang trabahong
nalilikha mula sa pagsusunog ng basura.
Imbes na baligtarin ang batas, palakasin pa sana ito upang mapairal ng
walang pasubali ang mga ligtas na alternatibong solusyon na hindi
magwawaldas ng mga rekurso at pondo ng bayan. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 29 July 2010 03:26 |
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Nurse Practitioners as an Underutilized Resource for Health Reform: Evidence-Based Demonstrations of Cost-Effectiveness |
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Saturday, 10 July 2010 02:53 |
Article Summary
Recent healthcare reform initiatives were motivated by an imperative to reduce the relentless increase in spending on medical care. Solutions are focused on the application of proven principles of evidence-based practice and cost-effectiveness: in short, finding the least-expensive way to provide a specific clinical service of acceptable quality.
Written by an internationally recognized medical economist and health futurist, this article combines economic analysis and a literature review to show how the goals of healthcare reform can be accomplished by allowing independently licensed nurse practitioners (NPs) to provide a wide range of services directly to patients in a variety of clinical settings.
Some of the author's conclusions are:
· Allowing the substitution of NPs for more-expensive health professionals can reduce the costs of producing healthcare without diminishing quality in the process.
· Policies that constrain appropriate input substitution need to be changed as quickly as possible. Money that could be reallocated to meeting reform goals is being wasted as long as rules and regulations hinder full use of less expensive, equally qualified NPs.
· Economic and clinical gains can be realized by allowing NPs to be independent caregivers and team leaders for a large number of health services and settings.
· The United States is paying a high price for current policies that prevent NPs from practicing within their full, legally defined scopes of practice.
· Cost-effectiveness analysis clearly supports reversing rules and regulations that deny reimbursement to NPs while paying more expensive health professionals for clinical services that achieve similar results.
· Several decades of experience with NPs and dozens of published studies show that quality is not a problem with reforms that would allow NPs to provide more services. Nurse practitioners care for patients at least as well as physicians in many clearly defined areas of nursing and medical practice.
· Every study published in peer-reviewed journals has reinforced the Office of Technology Assessment's conclusions in 1981[1] NPs can be substituted for physicians in a significant portion of medical services -- ranging from 25% in some specialty areas to 90% in primary care -- with at least similar outcomes. Not a single study has found that NPs provide inferior services within the overlapping scopes of licensed practice.
· Those who favor restricting the use of NPs in overlapping areas of clinical competency have no data to support their position.
· Patients like the care they receive from NPs at least as much as the care they receive from physicians. Consumers' overall appreciation of NPs is extremely high.
· The use of NPs can save money in accordance with another important goal of health reform: reducing the direct and indirect cost of professional liability (eg, malpractice claims).
· Collaborative, team-based approaches to care -- including teams led by NPs -- should be actively promoted to reduce overall spending on healthcare.
· The full integration of NPs into daily practice as substitutes for other qualified health professionals in many clinical areas will also enhance access. Nurse practitioners treat patients in many settings where other qualified independent caregivers are scarce.
Viewpoint
This is a succinct summary of the NP literature as it pertains to economic issues of healthcare. Although NP practice has been subjugated to some of the most intense research investigation of any healthcare provider group, many of the studies have been discounted because the research was performed by NPs themselves. This article should heighten the credibility of some of the earlier studies by coming to the same conclusions. The author makes the same type of recommendations that Barbara Sefreit, JD, Associate Dean and Professor, Yale Law School, did in 1992[2]: She suggested that regulations that hinder NPs from their full scope of practice should be removed.
This article should help guide state legislators who seek to create order out of chaos in the new healthcare reform movements. It should also be used as evidence for federal regulators when writing the myriad of regulations that will come out of the recently passed healthcare reform legislation. This article should make these individuals more comfortable with removing some of the barriers to NP practice. Debate about the use of NPs will surely continue, so this article is timely.
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Last Updated on Saturday, 10 July 2010 02:55 |
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Pinoy nurses in Northern Marianas complain of delayed, partial wages |
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Wednesday, 16 June 2010 16:28 |
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GARAPAN, Saipan – At least 22 Filipino nurses and auxiliary personnel in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have complained they have not been paid on time for as long as three months now. Some nurses received partial payments for their salaries, but are still uncertain whether they would get paid in full or if they would get paid after all in the next pay period. The 22 overseas health workers are employed by a private employment agency, Saipan Employment Agency and Services, for work in the CNMI, a U.S. territory some three hours away from Manila. These Filipino nurses are assigned to the CNMI government-run Rota Health Center and Tinian Health Center, located in two other major islands of the CNMI. In the CNMI’s capital island of Saipan, nurses in the government-run hospital are directly employed by the government and do not experience salary delays. Most of the government nurses in Saipan and in the whole Northern Marianas are Filipinos. “Nagi-stay pa rin kami dito dahil ayaw naman naming iwanan ang mga pasyente namin. Pero sana maayos na itong problema namin. Sana ma-hire na kami directly ng gobyerno. Hindi na namin makakayanan kapag ‘di pa kami makatanggap ng sweldo," one of the Filipino nurses at the Rota Health Center told GMANews.TV. (We’re staying here because we don’t want to abandon our patients. But we’re hoping that our problem would be addressed. We hope we’d be hired directly by the government. We can’t stand it any longer if we still don’t receive our wages.) Filipino nurses in both Tinian and Rota do not want to be identified, fearing retaliation from either the employment agency or the CNMI government. Since March 2010, nurses in Rota received payments covering only the hourly $4.55 minimum wage of their salaries, and not their complete hourly salary of $8.93 to $9.20 an hour. These nurses’ employment agency, SEAS, has also been permanently barred and disqualified from hiring, renewing or employing foreign workers in the CNMI because of labor violations. SEAS appealed the decision, but the CNMI Department of Labor upheld the debarment and disqualification. The agency can still appeal the latest decision. The employment agency likewise said it has not been receiving payments from the CNMI government and, as a result, could not pay these Filipino nurses for the services they render at the government health centers. CNMI lawmakers stepped in to identify funds to pay the nurses salary. However, the funding appropriated by lawmakers and approved by the governor could only cover partial payment of the salaries. The Philippine Consulate General in Saipan could not be reached as of posting time. Records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration show there are over 3,200 Filipino workers in the US territory as of 2009.—JMA/JV, GMANews.TV |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 16:31 |
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Judge sides with Pinoy nurse fired for speaking in Tagalog |
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Monday, 19 July 2010 01:00 |
FAIRFAX, Virginia - The Maryland Department of Labor reversed an order that withheld unemployment benefits from one of three Filipina nurses who were fired from a Baltimore hospital for speaking Tagalog.
Administrative judge Stuart Breslow sided with the nurses when he said in his ruling that no patient was ever put in danger when they spoke Tagalog during their break.
Breslow said Filipina nurse Corina Yap should be eligible to receive jobless benefits. The Labor Department earlier said Yap could not receive unemployment benefits because she was fired for grave misconduct.
Four Filipino employees of the Bon Secours Hospital were fired in April, for allegedly violating the hospital’s English-only policy while on duty at the emergency room.
Nurses Anna Rosales, Hachelle Natano, Yap and employee Jazziel Granada however claim they spoke Tagalog only during breaks. Breslow also said any lapses on the part of the nurses were accidental.
The nurses’ legal counsel Arnedo Valero of the nonprofit Migrant Heritage Commission said the administrative court’s ruling can boost the nurses’ discrimination complaint filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Valero said the nurses are considering suing Bon Secours for damages. Balitang America
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Last Updated on Monday, 19 July 2010 01:03 |
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More RP nurses going to Britain |
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Sunday, 04 July 2010 13:08 |
MANILA, Philippines—More Filipino nurses are now leaving for the United Kingdom than those going to the United States over the past three years as immigration policies continue to impede demand for foreign nurses in America. Emmanuel Geslani, a consultant of several Manila-based recruitment agencies, said Filipino nurses were finding it easier to seek employment in the United Kingdom via the study-and-work program introduced by the British health service four years ago. “Filipino nurses hoping to work in the United States may have to wait five to seven years for H1-B working visas and two to three years for EB-3 immigrant visas before they can enter the US while those interested in improving their academic qualifications can enter the UK under the study-and-work program,” Geslani said. He cited statistics released by the UK Borders and Immigration Agency showing that the annual average number of Filipino nurses who went to the United Kingdom reached 7,000 from 2007 to 2009. By contrast, there was an annual average of less than 300 registered Filipino nurses entering the United States from 2003 to 2009 using H1-B work and EB-3 immigration visas, data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) show. Among countries, Saudi Arabia has received the biggest number of Filipino nurses, with an average of 8,000 deployed yearly. The POEA figures show a yearly average of 13,000 nurses deployed to various countries including the United States, Geslani said. Unemployed nurses “The opening of study programs that include on-the-job training (OJT) for Filipino nurses has been a blessing for the more than 300,000 unemployed licensed nurses in our country, with the glut increasing each year with more than 100,000 graduates each year,” said Geslani, a former vice president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters and a recruiter for the past three decades. The huge number of unemployed licensed nurses in the country has led to a sharp drop in enrollment at nursing schools. The study-and-work program allows Filipino nursing undergraduates to improve their academic background by studying in a British university for nine months to two years while being deployed to an appropriate work place. While studying, Filipino nurses are given an opportunity of 15.5 hours OJT with pay. Nursing graduates from overseas are required to work 20 hours a week while taking units to upgrade their skills to British standards. One international consultancy firm with an office in Manila has a work-and-study program that could send Filipino nurses to the United Kingdom within six months, Geslani said. Other health workers The firm offers two-year courses in the United Kingdom for Filipino physical therapists, medical technologists, public health workers and even social workers who would like to enter the British health care industry. A new program allows Filipino nursing graduates an opportunity to study in Britain for an additional year. They will then get a work experience of up to two years and be issued work permits. Most Filipino nurses in the United Kingdom end up becoming caregivers, as the country is also suffering from a shortage of health workers, according to Geslani. In demand Filipino caregivers are in demand in Britain because they are better English speakers than their counterparts from European Union countries such as Poland and Romania, he said. Many Filipino nurses also try to apply to become registered nurses in Britain and get permanent residence status immediately although the entry requirements are much tougher, he added. Typically, overseas workers in Britain can apply for permanent residence after working there for five years. Security issue Geslani said that while going to the United States was “not entirely hopeless” for aspiring Filipino nurses, getting there was becoming more difficult. “The US Citizenship and Immigration Service treats the migration of foreign nurses as a border-and-security issue and despite legislation to increase the number of foreign nurses government bureaucratic red tape has failed to find solutions to the lack of nurses in the US health care system,” he said. US hospitals and health institutions are also suffering from funding problems due to the global financial crisis. US President Barack Obama’s health care program augurs well for Filipino nurses because more hospitals and health facilities are to be set up in the following years as the US government implements universal health care, Geslani said. Call center agents “The problem is that the implementation just takes too long. Our students and graduates couldn’t wait to work abroad and deployment to the UK seems more promising. We already have many nursing graduates here who are working as call center agents while applying for work in the US,” he told the Inquirer. Filipino nurses’ interest in going to the US may be actually waning because of the weak demand there. For the first time, there was a drop in Filipino nurses taking the National Council Licensure Examinations (NCLEX). Only 3,024 took the exam from January to March this year, compared with 4,194 in the same quarter of 2009. The NCLEX refers to the licensure examination administered by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing Inc. |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 04 July 2010 14:31 |
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I am a Nurse: Then, Now and Forever |
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Wednesday, 26 May 2010 01:47 |
Back in the days and coming from a place where internet and other communication resources were scarce, most of our career decisions were greatly affected by how well the family will be able to support you and how others turned out in their chosen field. Will engineering be a good choice? What about the teachers? Or the architects? Or simply nursing? What you will read today is a picture of how nurses are “manufactured” in the Philippines.
I was inclined/interested to go for broadcast communication but then my eldest brother who was studying in the capital city and in his 2nd year of electronics engineering course told me to take nursing instead since it is easier to get a job in nursing than in other field. Take nursing then… he knew better than I do. I was late enrolling since we were waiting for the promised support from one of our relatives but it never came. With faith and boldness, we stepped into it, take the entrance test in one of the many universities and colleges offering the bachelor of science in nursing degree. Then my journey in this then female-dominated profession started.
My first year was not a problem at all. I would even tutor some of my classmates especially in the area of mathematics and in other subjects involving numbers. I was number 1 on the dean’s list from among the students in the 12-section batch. Life was hard. We don’t have student loan opportunities and I couldn’t get any scholarship from the school despite my grades because the thought was nursing students were rich. Not me!
My 2nd year in nursing school came with a blast. After our capping and pinning ceremonies, we were oriented to the would-be life in the world of nightingale. we had our community health nursing rotation to the different health centers where we did pre-natal check-up and health teachings, mother’s classes, well-baby clinics and immunization. One of the 2nd year nursing subject was maternal and child nursing and it was when we were exposed to labor and delivery clinics where we were required to do 5 actual deliveries, 5 assist deliveries and 5 cord care cases as a requirement to take the board.
Being the smartest student in the group (as they thought), they volunteered me to do the first actual delivery case who came in the clinic in the middle of the night. Whoa! My anxiety went up 5 stories taller than I am. I was having butterfly feelings in my stomach and I was pacing back and forth just like a manic patient inside the delivery room going through the birthing process in my mind. Here comes the mother who was in labor. We did leopold’s maneuver (first to fourth) to determine the fetal position and presentation, internal vaginal examination to measure how much effaced vis-à-vis dilated she was. It seems that my clinical instructor was probably more anxious than I was because I could hear her breathing right at the back of my left ear. After some careful coaching, alas, I saw the head, then the one shoulder, another shoulder and the whole body then the feet just as it was explained in the book with all his flexion, internal rotation, extension, external rotation and crowning. Ha!Ha!Ha! A baby boy in my arms!
I passed the baby to one of my group mates who was assigned to do the cleaning and cord care while I waited for the placenta to be delivered. After all those excitement, when everything has been completed, I held the baby in my arms wrapped not in swaddling clothes but in some donated baby dress to bring him to his mother and father who was in recovery in the adjacent room.
It was a memorable experience. Holding that baby in my arms brought me to a realization… this is my life, this will be my world… the World of Nightingale!
After some more deliveries, it was followed by another and another (actual and assist) and care of the babies. One thing is clear to us, this is not just for the sake of completion of requirements. This is it!
After much emphasis on prevention of error of all forms and all sorts, we were pretty much careful in everything we do not just double checking but triple checking as well plus having another student nurse to witness.
The challenge for me as a student nurse is how to create awareness so that promotion of health and prevention of illness will be instituted amongst the grassroots knowing that the resources among families and in the health institutions are very limited. Having this in mind, we did a lot of health education towards school children, mothers as well as the community in general.
It is a famous saying that health is wealth and health care is a basic right. Yes indeed! But it comes with a responsibility also especially for those who are with modifiable risk factors. The lifestyle of a person contributes enormously to his or her health status and how well he / she would react to stressors in life whether it be physical, emotional, psychological or mental, etc.
When I had my professional license, I was inclined to go to those specialty hospitals like the heart center, kidney institute, lung center, children’s hospitals but the first opportunity which opened its doors for me is in psychiatry and mental health nursing. I was thrilled to find out that the world of Sigmund Freud and Erik Ericson is rewarding but it has lots of frustrations also especially that the stigma attached to mental illness is sky high. I like the theory that there is always a reason for a behavior. The challenge for the nurse now is to know the factors affecting such behavior and be able to intervene accordingly .
To help out, I get involved in psychosocial processing – critical incident stress debriefing (PSP-CISD) especially for those who went through tragic incidents whether it be man-made or nature caused tragedy. Seeing the effectiveness of the tool, the mandate from the department was to conduct training so that mobilization of volunteers will be fast and easy.
It was also on these debriefing and training sessions I realized how fragile life is and how nursing and nurses can make a difference just by merely listening and being sensitive to the needs of the participants.
When I completed my master’s degree in nursing with focus on psychiatric nursing administration and education, I got a part-time teaching job. With the feedback from the deans and students, I was invited to teach in some other schools and even review centers. It was a gratifying experience but I did not leave my job in the hospital. I learned to stretch myself so I can provide for my family.
Getting a job at St Francis is a blessing itself. Though the practice itself is identical since we were using the same textbooks, I still need to adjust with the culture especially on the language part. But despite the difference in culture the other culture which is the culture of acceptance and openness helped me a lot to get in the system. I was so privileged to be part of the team and make a difference in the life of our stakeholders.
I see nursing as both a vocation and a profession. A vocation because I believe that to be an effective nurse, one need to look beyond compensation itself but the heart of the profession which is service. It is a profession because it is a vocation requiring knowledge of science and arts. Because of this, nurses are able to be flexible and adapt to situations where it calls for. It is not a routine nor a rigid 1-2-3 steps but it is an art. It has beauty which emanates from the heart who cares, a heart who listens.
Jesus is our Great Physician but He makes it a point that somebody watches over His children when He is gone so He created a nurse. Though we know that He is omnipresent, our presence become an extension of His healing hands.
Why I became a nurse? There are too many to mention. The most glaring truth are the job security and flexible working hours not to mention great pay. But the most positive reason of why I became a nurse and will remain to be a nurse is the rewarding impact and the difference I make at the life of the people I work with and care for.
ELMER ANTONIO R MENEZ, RN
Staff Nurse – Renal Floor |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 01:49 |
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