The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is now considering scrapping the licensure board exam requirement for nurses and other professionals.
Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III floated the idea to the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) as more health care workers (HCW), particularly nurses still want to work abroad during the Covid-19 crisis.
The labor chief said a nurse should already be allowed to work after graduating from school accredited by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) after already going “through so much exams.”
But, he noted, such reform would have to be legislated since professional laws require such licensure exams.
“So I told them [PRC] to study this then we could recommend it to Congress to remove such exams, which serve as additional cost to nurses,” Bello said.
To recall, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) imposed a deployment cap for HCW to ensure the country will still have a well staffed health facilities during the pandemic.
Initially, POEA has set a 5,000 deployment cap for HCWs, but it was later increased to 6,500 upon the request of DOLE.
Currently, Bello said the slots left for the HCWs, who would like to work to abroad. He said it may still be increased later this year upon the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).