Filipino nurses wanted

Dizon is one of thousands of Filipino nurses considering leaving the Philippines for other countries like Canada. The nurses who spoke to CBC News in June say their low salaries, working conditions, and limited career growth has forced them to think about leaving their families for better possibilities.

Many Canadian experts say Filipino nurses are essential to Canada’s health-care system, and make up a growing portion of regulated nurses in Canada. The best available data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) shows about four per cent of regulated nurses working in Canada in 2021 graduated from the Philippines.

But that’s an undercount, as it doesn’t represent Filipinos who are trained as nurses but working in other health-care roles such as caregivers, said Ivy Bourgeault, a professor in University of Ottawa’s sociological and anthropological studies department. She’s also the lead of a group of health experts called the Canadian Health Workforce Network