Nursing Licensure Examinees who would fail the June 2007

This is good news for the nursing graduates who took the June 2007 exam.

Nursing licensure examinees who would not pass the June 2007 may still have the opportunity to practice their course through a scheme the Department of Labor and Employment has been trying to work out.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said only half of the 78,000 examinees, including the 12,000 retakers, were projected to pass the board licensure test.

DOLE is contemplating on a fall back position of issuing licenses as practical nurse to those who would fail the test.

“[We are anticipating] that many of them will do re-take so we think that one fall back position is to have them licensed as practical nurse. This is assuming that there are some that would not do the re-take," Brion said in an interview.

According to Brion he already proposed this measure to Senator Edgardo Angara and to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and to Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) and they all agreed to its viability.

“We will meet soon and discuss this," he added.

Licensing the nursing examinees who failed the board exam as practical nurse is a way of helping them achieve their dreams of finding employment opportunities abroad, Brion said.

“These will be a sunrise opportunity for them because they could still practice their course even though they failed the test," he noted.

Demands for practical nursing are similarly increasing especially in hospitals abroad, the labor chief noted.

Results of the June nursing board exam would be out “by the middle of August," Brion said.

The next licensure exam for nurses is scheduled in December.

The 12,000 retakers in June were those who wanted to seek employment in the United States following the decision of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to deny work visas to the June 2006 examinees because of allegations of cheating that marked the testing process.

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NCLEX

US NCLEX to be administered in Manila

US agency to give nursing licensure tests in Manila

MANILA, Philippines -- The United States' National Council of State Boards of Nursing has announced that it will begin administering its licensure exams in Manila on August 23.

Scheduling for examination appointments will begin on Friday, according to a notice posted on the NCSBN website, www.ncsbn.org. The test will be administered by the Pearson Professional Center in Manila.

"The Manila site was chosen in February by the NCSBN Board of Directors because of the deep commitment shown by the Philippine government to ensuring a secure test center," NCSBN said.

"The placement of a test site in the Philippines will allow for greater customer service to nurses without compromising the goal of safeguarding the public health, safety and welfare of patients in the US.," it added.

NCSBN administers the National Council Licensure Exams (NCLEX) which Filipino nursing graduates must take and pass to be able to work in the United States. The Chicago-based council is an organization of the nursing boards of the 50 US states, the District of Columbia and the four US territories of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

According to the NCSBN director of marketing and communications, Dawn Kappel, all international candidates are required to apply to the board of nursing in the state or territory where they wish to be licensed before registering for the NCLEX examination.
In practice, US hospitals recruit nurses in the Philippines through their own or third-party placement firms. The applicant is then sent to the United States but must take and pass the NCLEX to become a registered nurse.

Starting August, the nurses from Philippines do not have to take the US licensure examination to the nearest examination centers which are Hongkong and Guam.

This is the good news:
Taking and passing the NCLEX here gives the applicant an assurance that he or she will get the position he or she applied for in the United States.

NCLEX examination fee for all candidates is $200. Candidates who elect to take the NCLEX at an international site such as Manila must pay an additional $150 when they schedule their examination.

Intended for the purposes of domestic nurse licensure in US states and territories, all security policies and procedures currently used to administer the NCLEX examination domestically will be fully implemented in Manila, according to Kappel.

Offered abroad since January 2005, the current international sites for NCLEX examinations are in London; Hong Kong; Sydney; Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada, Frankfurt, Germany; Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai in India; Mexico City; Taipei, Taiwan; and Chiyoda-ku and Yokohama in Japan.

source : Inquirer

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Nursing Licensure 2007,
Board Exam,CGFNS,
NCLEX

Nursing Licensure exam in June 2007 will be released in August

The Professional Regulation Commission and Board of Nursing made this official declaration regarding the results of the Nursing Board Exam 2007.

“The release of the June 2007 nursing licensure examination results will be out by August 15 or 17 up to 31 at the Professional Regulation Commission office in Manila,” Marco Sto. Tomas of the BoN, which prepares and oversees the entire exam process, said.

He explained that the month’s delay is primarily due to the volume of examinees this year.

Some 78,000 nursing graduates took the June 10 and 11 exams, almost double the usual 40,000 examinees. Among them were some 13,000 passers of the June 2006 exam who retook tests 3 and 5 again on the recommendation of the United States Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS).



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Nursing,
Board Exam,CGFNS,
NCLEX

What is NCLEX?

What is the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX)?
The NCLEX-RN examination is a Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT) designed to test knowledge, skills, and abilities essential to the safe and effective practice of nursing at the entry level.



source:rn california

Nursing Licensure Result,Nursing Licensure Result June 2007Board Exam,CGFNS,
NCLEX

The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) today condemn the exploitation of Filipino Nurses

SILVER SPRING, Md., June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

The American Nurses Association (ANA) and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) today condemned the exploitation of immigrant RNs by unscrupulous U.S. employers and called for better enforcement of immigration laws.

They cited the case of 26 registered nurses from the Philippines who say they were brought to New York under false pretenses and denied the rights guaranteed by their employment contract. When the nurses resigned, they were sued by their former employer and accused of professional misconduct. On March 22, ten of the RNs were indicted in Suffolk County Supreme Court on charges of endangering their patients. Remarkably, the nurses' employment attorney was also indicted, for conspiracy; they all plead not guilty.

The nurses had been hired through a recruitment agency to work at specific nursing home facilities on Long Island. When they arrived in the U.S., they discovered they actually were working for another agency. Over a period of months, the nurses said, the agency refused to pay them according to the terms of their contracts. They also said they were not properly trained for their new jobs and were required to care for more patients than they believed was safe.

"This case may be just the tip of the iceberg. Nurses who come to the U.S. deserve to have their rights protected," said Tina Gerardi, RN, interim chief executive office of NYSNA. "Instead, these nurses were placed in the untenable position of being captive to an employer under conditions that did not allow them to provide safe patient care."

Gerardi said NYSNA became aware of the nurses' situation in May 2006 and assisted them in getting a hearing before the State Board for Nursing after the recruitment agency accused them of professional misconduct. "They couldn't get work because the issuance of their licenses was on hold pending investigation of an allegation of patient abandonment," Gerardi said. "Those charges were dismissed by the state board. We are greatly concerned these RNs are now being prosecuted for the same actions."

"The real patient endangerment lies in the deplorable conditions that led the nurses to leave. After exhausting all possibilities to resolve their concerns with the facility and the agency, the nurses left without providing two weeks notice. These brave nurses deserve the nursing community's full support because they refused to remain in a situation where patients were being denied the kind of care and staffing they deserved," said ANA President Rebecca M. Patton, RN, MSN, CNOR.

The nurses' plight has become a cause celebre in both the Philippines and the New York City Filipino community. The RNs are expected to participate in the New York Philippine Independence Day parade on June 3, where they will receive support from both the Filipino and nursing communities.

The ANA is the only full-service professional organization representing the interests of the nation's 2.9 million registered nurses through its 54 constituent member nurses associations. The ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the rights of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of

nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

What is the CGFNS Certification Program ?

For registered nurses who have not passed the NCLEX-RN®, successful completion of the CGFNS Certification Program Qualifying Examination will also meet the nursing examination requirement of Section 343.

The CGFNS Certification Program is a three-part program designed specifically for first-level general nurses who were educated and licensed outside of the United States who wish to practice nursing in the US. The program consists of:

• a credentials review of your secondary and professional education and licensure, to ensure comparability to a US-educated and licensed registered nurse

• the CGFNS Qualifying Exam of nursing knowledge (administered three times a year in over 45 test sites worldwide and once a
year in select test sites)

• a passing score on an approved English proficiency examination (TOEFL, TOEFL iBT, TOEIC or the academic module of the IELTS)

Successfully completing all three parts of the Certification Program results in the issuance of a CGFNS Certification Program
Certificate. A CGFNS Certification Program Certificate will assist registered nurses in three ways:

1. The Certificate will help nurses meet the state registration and other requirements in order to be eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN®
examination

2. Passing the CGFNS Qualifying Exam portion of the Certification Program will help you to feel reasonably assured of success on the NCLEX-RN®.

This is because the CGFNS Certification Program Qualifying Examination is modeled after the NCLEX-RN®. Passing the CGFNS Certification Program Qualifying Examination does not guarantee that you will pass the NCLEX-RN®, but CGFNS Certification Program Certificate holders consistently have a higher rate of success on the NCLEX-RN® than nurses educated outside the U.S. who have not passed the CGFNS Certification Program Qualifying Examination.

3. The Certification Program Certificate helps you to qualify for an occupational visa because it satisfies the nursing examination
requirement of Section 343 and the VisaScreen® Assessment.

For further information on the CGFNS Certification Program, please visit the CGFNS website at www.cgfns.org.

Govt offers nursing exam retake subsidy

GMA ‘committed’ to uphold RP nurses’ prestige

By Sam Mediavilla, Reporter

The government will shoulder the expenses of the 1,000 nurses who will retake the leakage-marred licensure examinations in June, President Arroyo announced on Friday.

In a speech at the 2007 International Science Conference of the Phil-American Academy of Science and Engineering in a Makati City hotel, the President said “the government shall provide financial assistance to 2006 nursing board passers for the retake of the exams as called for by the CGFNS [Commission on Graduates on Foreign Nursing Schools].”

The President said she is committed to uphold the prestige and excellence of the country’s nursing profession and expressed displeasure at the putting on hold of the deployment of Filipino nurses as a result of the leakage.

The Philadelphia-based CGFNS announced Thursday that Filipino nursing graduates who passed the June 2006 nursing licensure examination are not eligible for a VisaScreen Certificate.

The certificate is a requirement for nursing applicants in the US.

The President also instructed Labor Secretary Arturo Brion to review the findings of the CGFNS and “seek all forms of relief from the visa hold and appeal for reconsideration of the decision.”

Dr. Dante Ang, chairman of the Commission on Filipino Overseas, once again appealed to the June 2006 batch of nursing examinees to consider the concerns expressed by the CGFNS.

Interviewed over dzMM, Ang made it clear that the issue of a retake is not just a “legal argument” between the board passers and those advocating the retest.

“We cannot argue with America. The VisaScreen Certificates, which the CGFNS issues to foreign nurses, is a requirement prescribed by their law and the concern here is not the legal issue but the public health and public safety of its patients,” he said.

Ang appealed to sectors concerned not to waste the government’s efforts to salvage the future of the nursing profession by refusing to abide with the requirements of the CGFNS.

Ang said he and representatives of the National Bureau of Investigation tried to persuade officials of National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) that President Arroyo was doing something to address the problems arising from the leakage.

“It might hurt to know, and I don’t want to wash our dirty linen in public, but the truth is we cleaned up their mess at our presentation at the NCSBN,” he said.

Rene Tadle of the task force on nursing leakage based at the University of Santo Tomas, renewed his challenge to the Professional Regulation Commission to admit that it committed a mistake.

Tadle said the PRC particularly Chairperson Leonor Rosero should order the invalidation of the certificates of the nurses whom she allowed to take their oath on November 15.

Ang backed up Tadle’s challenge, saying the officials who ordered the recomputation of the results of Tests 3 and 5 should be held responsible.

“The problem is the officials responsible for this fiasco are hiding behind the 17,000 nursing graduates. What they should do is to admit they have committed mistakes and to rectify their error by invalidating the recomputed grades and ordering a retake,” he said.

Rosero said she will meet with nursing industry leaders and get a consensus before deciding on a course of action.

For the moment, she said the Philippine government will abide by the decision of the Court of Appeals that only 1,687 examinees will have to retake Tests 3 and 5 of the exam. The retake was held in December.

Only those who have not yet applied for CGFNS would be affected by the edict, Rosero said.

Source: Manila Times

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Nursing,
Board Exam,CGFNS,
NCLEX