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Don’t blame us, say Baguio nursing deans

By Vincent Cabreza
Inquirer
07/16/2006

BAGUIO CITY—The deans of Baguio’s nursing schools said they should not be blamed if the exposé about cheating in the 2006 Nursing Licensure Examination would reduce the number of Filipino nurses being employed abroad.

Maria Grace Lacanaria, dean of the St. Louis University College of Nursing, said they were apprised about the potential backlash on migrating nurses of their campaign against anomalies in the annual licensing tests of the Professional Regulation Commission.

“[The 91 complainants and the city’s nursing schools] will work to cleanse Philippine nursing [community] of professionals who cheated to get their licenses, but this should not be the reason for us to be condemned if the world’s medical community starts distrusting our nurses,” said Lacanaria.

At a rally on Tuesday, Lacanaria said cleaning up the licensure examinations would guarantee that foreign employers would be getting competent and efficient nurses.

The country sends 15,000 nurses annually to the United States, according to the Department of Labor and Employment.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration expressed fears this number would be cut due to the scandal.

Lawyer Kisaak Gabaen, who represents the nursing school deans, said they were initially blamed for the United Kingdom’s decision to suspend its quota of migrating Filipino nurses last month.

But the UK cut was a consequence of its new health laws that restrict the number of foreign medical employees it could hire, Gabaen said.

The school deans said they would sue next week a top official of the Philippine Nurses Association who tried to pressure them into suppressing the expose because of ongoing negotiations to host the US National Council Licensure Examination for nurses in Manila.

On Thursday, PRC chair Leonor Tripon-Lucero confirmed there were leakages of test questions and answers that circulated among clients of a review center during the June 11 and 12 licensing exams here. A PRC fact-finding body traced the leak to the test manuscripts of two members of the PRC board of nursing.

But Lucero did not say whether PRC would void the exam results as a consequence.

Ninety-one of the examinees complained to PRC about the cheating, and had asked for the suspension of both the test results and the two members of the nursing board.

Members of PNA in the city and the Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing (ADPCN) also filed their complaints.

The R.A. Gapuz Review Center which was implicated in the leakages yesterday said it would fully cooperate with PRC’s investigation of the incident.

The RAGRC noted that the PRC fact-finding committee did not find the review center to have been involved in the leakage.

“RAGRC is confident that its name will soon be finally cleared and vindicated of any suspicion thus proving its earlier consistent assertions that it had absolutely no participation in any leakage,” it said in a statement.

RAGRC said it supported the PRC’s recommendations that administrative charges be filed against those involved and that some questions in Test III and Test V be excluded and invalidated. With a report from Jerome Aning .

PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
http://globalnation.inq7.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=10074

Posted by Budek on Sunday, July 16, 2006 at 9:45 PM | Permalink