“We were told that the nursing board has only one staffer attending to all the services performed by the office,” he said in an interview. “Due to a lack of personnel, there are a lot of phone calls, inquiries and documentations that are not properly addressed …. We may be losing huge potential revenues.”
Manglona, R-Rota, said lawmakers have agreed to fund the salaries of four employees for the nursing board, which processes the documents of foreign nurses who need to obtain licenses under a U.S.-accredited nursing board.
Each nurse pays a fee of $110.
“That’s half a million dollars in revenue from the board if it processes 5,000 licenses,” Manglona said.
A license has to be renewed every two years for $50 — additional source of income for the CNMI government, he added.
“We’ve been told that because of the lack of personnel, some nurses have to wait for eight months to get a reply to their inquiries, and that’s so disappointing,” he added.
According to Manglona, the FY 2009 budget bill will include funding for the board’s executive director, two nursing assistants and a clerk.
He noted that the Philippines alone has 20,000 nursing graduates every year.
“The more we process documentations and issue licenses, the more we collect from the nursing board,” he said. “And the nursing board has a revolving fund that will later pay for its own operational expenses.”
The lawmaker said foreign nurses are not a “threat” to their local counterparts.
“These foreign nurses will pay and continue to renew their licenses without setting foot here … so there’s no way we consider them as threat to our local nurses,” Manglona said.
