The truth of the matter is that Filipino nurses became nurses for one reason alone – they want to escape the grinding poverty in the Philippines. Have you ever met a Pinoy nurse who dreamed of becoming a nurse since they were 5 years old? Have you ever seen a Pinoy nurse who wakes up every morning and can’t wait to scrub feces-soiled beds? Have you ever heard of a Pinoy nurse who is so excited to work in understaffed wards and expose themselves to AIDS or Hepatitis? Have you ever heard of a Pinoy nurse who enjoys attending to violent patients and loves being screamed at by families?

Probably not, because most of us never dreamed of wiping bums for a living or being bullied into depression by senior co-workers. Most of us had ambitions of belonging to respectable professions such as being an accountant, an engineer, or a lawyer perhaps. It’s just so unfortunate that most of us Pinoy nurses were so sold out on a dream, believing that nursing can give us a better life. It may be a better country but it is not a better life, and no amount of editorial sugarcoating can hide this fact.

My raw opinions come from personal experience and that of my colleagues, armed with the knowledge that nurses are now starting to speak up about the real horrors of the job and how they are expected to accept it as part of the profession. The poor, poor nurses. It is probably safe to say that Nursing is among the worst professions in the world, as supported by reports from international news agencies. It is physically dangerous and it is a psychological hazard at the same time. The sorry state of nurses all over the world is proof that nurses may as well sit at the very bottom of the labor food chain: overworked, understaffed, disrespected, exposed to workplace violence, low pay and the inherent culture of bullying – will all point out that Filipinos were pushed into becoming nurses because no one in the Western world would want this job because it is yuck. No wonder the global nursing shortage remains unresolved for decades because no one in their right mind would really ever want this job. And as a nurse myself, I will never wish upon anyone to become a nurse. My only wish is that I should’ve done further research before entering nursing school back home in the Philippines, and that I should’ve had the courage to go against the grain. Parents, relatives, friends and almost everyone in the country expects you to take up nursing, believing that it can bring economic rewards. Economic rewards? The recent strikes in NZ, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and pretty much everywhere else has proven to be a slap in the face. Money can never buy peace of mind.

You don’t need a PhD to come to terms with reality.

Hypocrisy disgusts me. There is simply no substitute for truth.