Posted on 02/23/2014 5:07:13 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Lucy Meg Quinit, pictured Friday at Trinity Health in Minot, is one of a group of 86 nurses from the Philippines recruited to work in Minot.
MINOT, N.D. – Filipino nurse Lucy Meg Quinit thought she and her family would miss home more as they adjust to a new life in North Dakota.
But Quinit is among more than 80 nurses from the Philippines that Trinity Health in Minot has recently hired, and the new recruits have formed their own support community.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re not getting so homesick,” said Quinit, who has worked for Trinity Health for one year.
International recruitment is one way Trinity Health has responded to western North Dakota’s oil development, which has increased patient loads in Minot while making it more difficult to retain staff.
“The oil boom has really, really had a tremendous effect on health care in general,” said Barbara Brown, Trinity’s chief nursing officer.
Trinity Health, a regional trauma center with a service area of 20 counties, continues to hire nursing graduates from local colleges and universities, as well as around the country, and has no problem getting applicants, Brown said.
But the high cost of living in Minot makes it difficult to attract and retain staff, and many hires from elsewhere in the country choose to move closer to family after they gain experience, Brown said.
Trinity Health responded by developing a recruitment plan, which included traveling to the Philippines about two years ago and interviewing more than 150 nurses, Brown said. During that trip, they hired 86 Filipino nurses, and they continue to conduct interviews via Skype when they have a qualified applicant, she said.
For Quinit, a native of Cebu City, the opportunity to work in the U.S. was something she wanted for years so she could have access to better opportunities.
“Nurses there are really paid so low,” said Quinit, 42.
Quinit moved to Minot about a year ago, and her husband, Dexter, and their sons Darren, 6, and David, 2, joined her after they completed the school year there and she had found an apartment.
Quinit works weekdays in Trinity’s podiatry clinic and her husband works nights and weekends for Trinity as a central processing technician, a schedule that allows one parent to always be with the boys.
In the winter, Darren has questioned why his mom would choose to move them to such a cold city, but he likes his school so much he wishes he could go to kindergarten on weekends.
“It wasn’t hard for him to adjust. He loved it right away,” Quinit said.
Most of the other Filipino nurses also have their families in Minot and they get together for birthday parties and holidays. They use technology to keep in touch with family back home.
“I still get to talk to them almost every day, if not every day,” Quinit said.
Trinity is now considering recruiting nurses from Canada as well, Brown said.
“I think we have to,” Brown said. “We have to continually look at all the different opportunities we might have because we’re not the only ones. Everyone’s struggling to make sure they have people.”
A rolling nurse gathers no boss.
I’m thinking of getting a job with the oil companies in North Dakota, the ones Sean Hannity is interviewing on his talk show. My Filipina wife doesn’t want to go there because it’s so cold, but maybe she will like the place after all.
Filipino potlucks are the best - Lumpia, adobo, mmmmm.
Doing (more) jobs Americans won’t do ??
Years ago you saw blue collar jobs go away as manufacturing was sent overseas to low wage countries.
Today, big corporation and government even, see the cheap pool of professionals in places like India as a low cost alternative they can bring to the US in those white collar jobs that can’t be offshored. Things like the H1B visa are grossly misused to this end, but since big corporate America was the one behind formulating the legal verbiage of some of these rules, it’s all legal and government itself plays this game!
40 years ago the goal was to build a factory in the Philippines to build a widget. Today the goal is to get a Philippine or an Indian engineer to come to the US and work for $40,000 a year in a white collar job.
The article says there was a shortage.
They’re all hunting for rich dumb American husbands - the nursing thing is just the way in.
They certainly don’t stay in the job long. My supervisor in a technical firm was an LVN. You bet your sweet bedpan.
In most cases, thats true.
On the other hand, the American husband is probably getting a very good deal in a wife. (YMMV, but odds of a good wife are better than with the native talent)
Net plus for the US.
That’s only one good answer to the high costs of the medical rackets.
When the majority of college kids here won’t study engineering, the sciences, mathematics, medicine, nursing and the like, what is one to do? Go without? Do you truly believe that most employers in this country would rather hire an Indian, Pakistani, Filipino or Chinese worker over an American? Or is it that there is an inadequate supply of US workers to fill those slots?
True, but how scientific does a nurse have to be?
They generally operate under the direction of a doctor and only a few are allowed to act in advance of direction, and only after the doctor learns to trust them.
99% of nursing is the basics. Take temps, give shots, report status and assist as directed.
I guess I should say that's my completely ignorant opinion:)
Use job service of Nd also craigslist.
Some companies have housing look for them if you wanna break in and areshort on cash.
The winter continues, one guy came here on a wing and a prayer
They amputated his legs for being so stupid.
Things should begin to pick up in the construction trades in April
The drillng rig are lookin to hire also are the pulling units or workover rigs if you prefer. Drilling rigs will have housing
My father-in-law’s second wife was a Filipina nurse and a greedy, parasitic nightmare.
regarding immigration:
I think this type of immigration should be enabled unlike the uncontrolled mexican immigration.
And it is not about color, mexican nurses are also welcome.
It is the vast amounts of uncontrolled and often unskilled labor that is the problem.
We need a canadian style immigration system which is wholly color blind but focuses on skills, health, age, education, etc.
lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6OLUPSHyE
It’s the same thing that happened years ago to manufacturing in the US and the blue collar jobs. Today, it’s simply the white collar jobs that are targeted in the US itself.
I use to work as a PM at a major IT firm and I saw this first hand. It’s a big game where business knows the rules (which they helped write) and as long as they go through certain motions they can import engineers, nurses, PhDs, MDs, programmers etc at a rate ~ $15,000 per year, per person below hiring an American. Today, we are bringing thousands under the guise that there are no Americans willing to do the job or that there is a lack in technical skills, but this is all a lie. It’s merely a game where these businesses know what they have to do and say to appear as if they tried hiring and finding qualified people in the US. This, all while they actually don’t want to hire anyone and then fall back onto bringing someone into the US that not only makes a lot less, but also will lose his ability to stay here if he screws up or isn’t willing to do “whatever” they want (he’s a near slave to his employer). This is merely a bottom line driven issue where a substitute labor supply is used that targets the white collar professionals.
I’m in the Alberta oil patch as an electrician. It’s great. Where else can you contract out yourself with your truck, make over 200k a year easy and have a decent lifestyle. Those places are getting few and far between. I wouldn’t recommend roughneck or anything though, work is very hard on the body. I say work with the brain not the brawn heh.
Having spent the last year trying to get help with multiple health issues the cultural, language and inferior educations of all foreign medical personnel jeapordize our very lives with some notable exceptions.
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