Time magazine article regarding Filipino nurses fighting the frontlines

From AIDS to COVID-19, America’s Medical System has a long history of relying on Filipino nurses to fight on the frontlines. “In the early days of the pandemic, Susan Castor, a 64-year-old Filipino American nurse, would make her rounds taking care of patients at a transitional care unit at Community Medical Center in Toms River, N.J., wearing only a standard surgical mask, due to a nationwide shortage of PPE. Then, a patient from her unit tested positive for COVID-19. By April 7, 2020, Castor began feeling dizzy and weak. Three days later, she lost her sense of smell and tested positive herself. Fortunately, Castor recovered after contracting the novel coronavirus—but countless other Filipino health care workers have not.

The coronavirus has taken a devastating toll on Filipino nurses battling COVID-19 in the U.S. According to National Nurses United, as of April 2021, 24 percent of the nurses they surveyed who died from COVID-19 complications were Filipino; but, Filipinos only make up 4 percent of the total registered nurses in the country.

It isn’t the first time that migrant Filipino nurses have been on the frontlines of hospitals and emergency rooms in America. After the U.S. colonized the Philippines in the late 19th century, the country has relied on Filipino health care workers to mend the staffing gaps in America’s patchwork health care system, especially in times of medical crisis. Since 1960, over 150,000 Filipino nurses have migrated to the U.S. In 2019, one out of 20 registered nurses in the U.S. was trained in the Philippines.

“Without Filipino nurses, the U.S. health care system would have been paralyzed,” says Leo-Felix Jurado, a professor and department chair of nursing at William Paterson University, tells TIME. “It would have been almost impossible for the health care system to have safely existed.”

“Others will turn their back just because they are afraid and they don’t want to do it, but Filipinos face the challenge and help out until the end,” says Castor. “Even with COVID, we will still serve because that is our passion.” Check out the full article written by Paulina Cachero 5/30/21 at: www.https://time.com/6051754/history-filipino-nurses-us/