Want more jobs for our nurses? Junk the protectionist provisions in the 1987 Constitution

Over the past few days I've been looking at the protectionist provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and this morning, I read the editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer where Health Secretary Dr. Enrique Ona says that he wouldn't allow his own daughter to take up nursing.

Now, for some time now, the glut of nursing professionals has been popping in and out of the headlines.  So far, the current administration hasn't done much to get much of the newly graduated nurses hired or get colleges and universities to accept less students for its nursing courses.

One thing that sort of clicked inside my head was the much hyped government program to promote "medical tourism".

With the Philippines being quite well known for the good quality of its professional health services and the portability of health benefits of some countries, it would be an easy sell or so I thought.

Then I realized something.

Not many physicians in the US, Japan, and other countries would rather than NOT send their patients here for treatment.

Apart from professional competition and professional concern, I guess, Physicians in other counties would be more confident in sending their patients here for treatment if they could be reasonably assured that their patients would be treated well.

Of course, they could go through their professional networks and contact a doctor here in the Philippines who could assure them on a person-to-person basis.  But how many of them have that network? Not many.

The bigger channel or volume of patients would probably come from health care organizations (hospitals, clinics, and even some health maintenance organizations).

Of course, foreign medical institutions can and probably have ties with Philippine medical institutions here, but still, wouldn't it be much easier for them to send their patients here if they had actually a branch here that is completely owned by them?

Certainly, these medical institutions wouldn't be able to afford to send over to the Philippines all the medical professionals they'll need to run a hospital or clinic and moreover, foreign doctors are certainly not allowed to practice their professions here.  Thing is, they'll have to hire our doctors as well as nurses and medical technology professionals.

If foreign ownership of hospitals are allowed, it certainly can spur a local demand for all our doctors and medical professionals.  It will certainly reduce the glut.

However, the thing is, the constitution doesn't allow this.