ABOUT OFWs & FILIPINO HEALTH WORKERS in JAPAN
AN
OVERVIEW OF THE MARKET
No one will argue that
health care workers and care-giving are not better lines of work than
prostitution, but the occupation is not the issue. The problem is that Filipinos
are being encouraged to leave their homes for years at a time to work in foreign
countries where, despite efforts by the Philippine government to protect them,
they are invariably treated as second-class citizens.
Filipino NGO explains that the demand for nurses and health care workers in
developed countries is so great that nurses and other medical practitioners have
been leaving the Philippines in large numbers. In Manila's public hospitals the
nurse-to-patient ratio is now 1:100. Even Filipino doctors are getting nursing
licenses because they can make more money abroad as nurses than they can as
physicians in their home country.
In the recent on-going Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the Philippines and
Japan ,though the idea of using migrant labor as leverage in trade negotiations
is problematic, it was found to be a good idea in a recent study that the
nursing and care-giving deal can be a positive first step in opening Japan's
labor market.
At present, foreign nurses have to graduate from a Japanese nursing school
before they can work in Japan, but under the proposed plan Filipino nurses or
any Filipino who has background in healthcare simply must be able to speak
Japanese and pass a test for nurses. Prospective nurses will be allowed to come
to Japan for four years, during which time they can take the test as often as
possible. If they fail to pass by the end of the four-year period, they have to
leave.
Today, Japan is using the Elderly Care Insurance System (kaigo hoken) in
implementing and/or operating nursing homes. Obviously, inexpensive workers are
needed to maintain the kaigo system, and that seems to be one of the purposes of
the FTA deal. For the most part, care-giving involves housekeeping for
incapacitated seniors, and most female Filipino migrant workers are
housekeepers. More importantly, they work for lower pay than Japanese do; or, at
least, they are expected to.
What's ironic is that Japan provides 63 percent of the Philippines' overseas
development assistance, more than any other country (the U.S. is second with 13
percent). In principle, the purpose of ODA is to help the recipient country
become more economically self-sufficient, but if Japan goes ahead and imports
Filipino labor in order to facilitate the FTA and satisfy its need for
inexpensive caregivers it will be contradicting the spirit of ODA.
There is even a proposal for using Japanese ODA to set up language schools in
the Philippines where potential nurses and caregivers can learn Japanese before
they come to Japan .
The governments of Japan and the Philippines reached a basic political agreement
on a bilateral FTA on 29 November 2004, at the ASEAN Summit in Laos. It is the
Philippines first free trade agreement and Japan’s third (the other two are with
Singapore and Mexico).
Major issues in the discussions were: easing restrictions in Japan’s labor
market to accommodate more Filipino healthcare professionals.
For healthcare workers, Japan agreed to allow a limited number of nurses (100 in
the first year) to stay beyond the current four-year time limit if they acquire
a Japanese license. Caregivers will have to undergo vocational training and also
acquire a license.
However, the Southeast Asian country did get one of its key wishes-Filipino
nurses and caregivers with Japanese qualifications and language skills will be
allowed to work in Japan for longer periods.
For the Philippines, where 8 percent of gross domestic product is made up of
overseas remittances, it is good news. Japan’s labor market remains somewhat
closed to foreigners without specific skills for the job. Foreign nurses can
work, but only for four years.
It was declared that Japan would accept Filipino nurses and nursing care workers
as part of its FTA obligations. Compared with American and European countries,
Japan is much closer to the Philippines both in culture and in geographical
terms.
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