Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed
This is such a difficult subject. I think immigration is a good thing, in general. It brings talent, it brings diversity, it brings people who are happy to change wee-ridden sheets and clear up sick of elderly people in residential homes because care home owners can't get British people (of whatever colour) to do it.
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I agree with most of what you`re saying Ed but would dispute the above. My experience is that Care Home owners will employ immigrants because it costs a hell of a lot less to pay a Fillipino nurse or carer than it does a British one. There`s plenty of people in Liverpool who would work in a care home could they get the job!
I worked for 6 years as a Sister in a BUPA Care Home. I actually really enjoyed the work but BUPA decided to start employing Fillipino nurses. They only employed qualified Fillipino nurses and funded their flights over here. They gave them a bed in the care home for the first 6 weeks after which they had to find their own accommodation. They paid these Fillipino nurses care assistant wages even tho they were working as a registered nurse thus saving BUPA at least £6 per hour for each nurse.
There were all sorts of difficulties ie. communication problems but I found the main difficulty was that these nurses had no knowledge of basic nursing care. They didn`t know how to bathe someone or feed someone let alone deal with incontinence. In the Phillipines the medical care is paid for by the family`s so the family`s do as much as possible ie. hygiene, bringing food in and feeding loved ones where necessary to keep the cost of the hospital stay to a minimum. As a result of this these nurses didn`t have a clue. After 6 months of this I left stating my reason for leaving was that BUPA were not acting in their patients best interests. After leaving I also wrote an article for the Nursing Times stating my concerns and a few months later I was pleased to hear that BUPA were no longer employing Fillipino nurses.
They are now, however employing a lot of Polish workers and I can only hope that they at least know how to wash a bum and relieve pressure areas!