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FEATURES/PinayCaregivers/Jan. 4, 2007 Graying Japan opens Culled from The Philippine STAR 07jan04 TOKYO (AFP) -- Ask wheelchair-bound 81-year-old Hisae Kajiwara about the new workers at her nursing home and a smile comes to her face. “They are really cheerful and make the atmosphere here very bright,” she says. Another woman, 79-year-old Mitsu Sekiguchi, also confined to a wheelchair, chimes in: “And they always make the beds just perfectly.” Normally, the arrival of new nurses at the care facility in Tokyo’s western fringes would be a mere question of personnel. But this time, it represents a fresh step for Japan. Maria Falqueza, 25, and Olivia Pineda, 30, are among the first Filipinas at nursing facilities in Japan, which has signed a free-trade agreement with the Philippines that broke precedent by allowing workers to come in. A handful of care support facilities have accepted 15 Filipinos including Falqueza and Pineda as trainees to brace for the full-fledged entry of Filipino nurses to Japan. After intense negotiations, then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and President Gloria Arroyo signed a deal in September for Japan to accept up to 1,000 care workers and nurses from the Philippines in two years. The deal is more due to pressure from the Philippines -- whose economy relies on remittances from the one-tenth of its population working overseas -- than any desire by Japan. Changes to immigration policy, like elsewhere in the developed world, are controversial in Japan, but especially so as Asia’s largest economy has strict regulations on foreign workers. Under the agreement, the care workers are required to learn Japanese and to pass Japanese certification examinations, even if they are already legally qualified in the Philippines. So every day, Falqueza and Pineda attend four hours of Japanese classes in the morning and then “literally rush to catch a rapid train to the care support facility” which is located some two and a half hours away, Falqueza says. They work four hours there, and when they go home it is already 9:30 p.m. Two years later, they hope to get Japanese certification and re-enter with working visas. “Our colleagues are nice and our elderly customers are kind, often teaching us Japanese customs,” says Pineda. “I want to keep working as a caregiver in Japan.” Falqueza nods, adding: “I’d like to have a stable job here, have savings, and enjoy being young.” Despite the political sensitivities, officials say the care support industry faces a daunting shortage of workers in Japan, whose population began to shrink in 2005. “Every facility is desperate to secure workers, because many workers, especially ones of good quality, are quick to leave due to tough working conditions involving night duties,” says Hiromichi Mizuno, the president of a care home in the western city of Osaka. The average annual salary for caregivers at public facilities funded through the insurance system is 2.2 million yen ($18,800), well below the 3.8 million yen average for salaried workers, according to a government survey. “Because the economy is recovering, we can’t even compete with McDonald’s in recruiting new workers,” Mizuno says. Solving the chronic shortage of workers boils down either to raising taxes -- which would require more public insurance money -- and accepting foreigners who are willing to work for less, facility managers say. Japan ’s welfare costs are already snowballing due to its aging society. So far, managers who have hired Filipino trainees see only the positive sides. “Because they are hard-working and have warm personalities, they are accepted by colleagues and by customers,” said Keiichi Kaneko of ZECS Community, a listed company, which has accepted Filipino trainees for care support facilities. Makoto Nanba, president of the Nanohana home where Falqueza and Pineda work, said the only major challenge he saw was the language barrier. “If they can write and communicate more freely with colleagues and people in the facility, I don’t mind hiring them,” he says. The tough requirement for Filipino caregivers -- and the comparatively small number who will be allowed to work here -- is seen by some as a deliberate attempt to avoid a political backlash. “I think the conditions imposed reflect the Japanese government’s intentions to limit the number of caregivers coming to Japan to a significantly low level,” says Nanba. “But I think it’s also true that foreign labor could provide downward pressure on salaries for care workers,” he adds, reflecting concerns that wages could lower even further. Japan currently admits only foreign workers who are highly qualified in specific fields, such as computers. In addition to the Philippines, Japan is currently talking with Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam on free trade deals that could involve loosening conditions for working visas here. “As the care industry always craves workers, I expect the immigration laws will have to be changed in the near future to allow more in,” says Masahiro Hachiya of the non-governmental International Care Aid Organization, which supports Falqueza and Pineda financially and in their everyday lives. “I think the essence of the issue is comprehensive support for immigrants in terms of finding flats, teaching Japanese social and business customs, and most importantly, overcoming cultural differences including religion,” he says. (Agence France-Presse) * * * Another working Christmas IT was an unusually quiet day in the emergency room on December 25th. Quiet, that is, except for the nurses who were standing around the nurses' station grumbling about having to work Christmas Day. I was triage nurse that day and had just been out to the waiting room to clean up. Since there were no patients waiting to be seen at the time, I came back to the nurses' station for a cup of hot cider from the crockpot someone had brought in for Christmas. Just then an admitting clerk came back and told me I had five patients waiting to be evaluated. I whined, “Five, how did I get five? I was just out there and no one was in the waiting room.” “Well, there are five signed in.” So I went straight out and called the first name. Five bodies showed up at my triage desk, a pale petite woman and four small children in somewhat rumpled clothing. “Are you all sick?” I asked suspiciously. “Yes,” she said weakly, and lowered her head. “Okay,” I replied, unconvinced, “who's first?” One by one they sat down, and I asked the usual preliminary questions. When it came to descriptions of their presenting problems, things got a little vague. Two of the children had headaches, but the headaches weren't accompanied by the normal body language of holding the head or trying to keep it still or squinting or grimacing. Two children had earaches, but only one could tell me which ear was affected. The mother complained of a cough, but seemed to work to produce it. Something was wrong with the picture. Our hospital policy, however, was not to turn away any patient, so we would see them. When I explained to the mother that it might be a little while before a doctor saw her because, even though the waiting room was empty, ambulances had brought in several, more critical patients, in the back, she responded, “Take your time, it's warm in here.” She turned and, with a smile, guided her brood into the waiting room. On a hunch (call it nursing judgment), I checked the chart after the admitting clerk had finished registering the family. No address -- they were homeless. The waiting room was warm. I looked out at the family huddled by the Christmas tree. The littlest one was pointing at the television and exclaiming something to her mother. The oldest one was looking at her reflection in an ornament on the Christmas tree. I went back to the nurses' station and mentioned we had a homeless family in the waiting room -- a mother and four children between four and 10 years of age. The nurses, grumbling about working Christmas, turned to compassion for a family just trying to get warm on Christmas. The team went into action, much as we do when there's a medical emergency. But this one was a Christmas emergency. We were all offered a free meal in the hospital cafeteria on Christmas Day, so we claimed that meal and prepared a banquet for our Christmas guests. We needed presents. We put together oranges and apples in a basket one of our vendors had brought the department for Christmas. We made little goodie bags of stickers we borrowed from the X-ray department, candy that one of the doctors had brought the nurses, crayons the hospital had from a recent coloring contest, nurse bear buttons the hospital had given the nurses at annual training day, and little fuzzy bears that nurses clipped onto their stethoscopes. We also found a mug, a package of powdered cocoa, and a few other odds and ends. We pulled ribbon and wrapping paper and bells off the department's decorations that we had all contributed to. As seriously as we met physical needs of the patients that came to us that day, our team worked to meet the needs, and exceed the expectations, of a family who just wanted to be warm on Christmas Day. We took turns joining the Christmas party in the waiting room. Each nurse took his or her lunch break with the family, choosing to spend their “off duty” time with these people whose laughter and delightful chatter became quite contagious. When it was my turn, I sat with them at the little banquet table we had created in the waiting room. We talked for a while about dreams. The four children were telling me about what they would like to be when they grow up. The six-year-old started the conversation. “I want to be a nurse and help people,” she declared. After the four children had shared their dreams, I looked at the Mom. She smiled and said, “I just want my family to be safe, warm and content -- just like they are right now.” The “party” lasted most of the shift, before we were able to locate a shelter that would take the family in on Christmas Day. The mother had asked that their charts be pulled, so these patients were not seen that day in the emergency department. But they were treated. As they walked to the door to leave, the four-year-old came running back, gave me a hug and whispered, “Thanks for being our angels today.” As she ran back to join her family, they all waved one more time before the door closed. I turned around slowly to get back to work, a little embarrassed for the tears in my eyes. There stood a group of my coworkers, one with a box of tissues, which she passed around to each nurse who worked a Christmas Day she will never forget. Retold every Christmas by (POSTSCRIPT comes out in the Philippine STAR every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Its online edition is uploaded the night before at http://www.manilamail.com) |
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