Over 100 Pinoy nurses lose jobs in Queens, New York

Published April 18, 2012 3:00pm

The year-long battle of some 100 Filipino nurses to keep their jobs in Queens, New York has come to an end when the hospital they were working for closed permanently on Monday. According to the news site Filipino Reporter on Monday, the century-old Peninsula Hospital Center in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York closed its doors after going bankrupt, leaving 1,000 workers jobless, including nearly 100 nurses.

The report said the Filipino nurses have been staging protests against the planned closure since last year. The hospital was ordered to stop admitting patients in February this year after the hospital laboratory failed an inspection due to expired blood products.

On February 23, the state Department of Health shut down the laboratory of Peninsula because it “no longer has sufficient working capital to stay open.”

The Office of the US Trustee, the group overseeing the bankruptcy, requested the appointment of a new operator after Chief Executive Todd Miller, an investor and a former senior manager at Revival Home Health Care, failed to save Peninsula because “he had no experience overseeing a hospital complex.”

In March, the US Department of Health approved the appointment of a new operator, Lori Lapin Jones, whose power supersedes the board of trustees.

In a story published by NBC New York, Jones said she will "turn to determining the most efficient and responsible manner in which to wind down the affairs of the hospital," including exploring the use of the closed hospital for other health care purposes.

Bleak future

One of the Filipino nurses, Agnes Joven, who has been working at the Peninsula for 28 years, said she does not expect to find a new job right away because “the competition for nursing jobs became tougher over the years.”

“We’re devastated...but we fought till the end,” she told the FIlipino Reporter. “We’re sad dahil matagal na kami rito.”

Joven has six months of unemployment benefits and is covered by her husband's medical insurance. However, she said she cannot stay jobless for long because two of her three children are still in college.

Aside from employment issues, the nurses also expressed concern about the local residents who will have to go for minor medical emergencies to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, the only remaining hospital in the area.

In serious cases such as heart attack or stroke, the patients have to be brought to Jamaica Hospital, 10 miles away from Far Rockaway, Queens.

Minority Nurse, an online resource for the nursing community, said the Philippines is the number one source of foreign-trained nurses in the US.

According to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), there were about 3.16 million Filipinos in the United States as of 2010. - Jon Lindley Agustin, VVP, GMA News

Tags: nurses, newyork, queens, unitedstates