Several nurses have objected to the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016 which requires professionals to gather enough units of training before they can have their licenses renewed.
Filipino Nurses United (FNU) said the law can cause problems for nurses, especially to those who are “unemployed or in non-nursing jobs or stationed in far-flung areas”.
“[They] should not be barred from renewing his/her professional ID that has already been rightfully earned,” the Inquirer quoted FNU as saying.
According to the Professional Regulation Commission, all professionals must comply with the CPD Law starting July 1 this year, except for nurses, chemists and chemical technicians, midwives, and agricultural and biosystems engineers who will need to comply on Jan. 1, 2018 and teachers on Dec. 1, 2017.
The law ensures that the professional competency is “in accordance with the international standards of practice”.
Junzen Lavapie, a civil engineer, started a petition at Change.org for the reevaluation of the CPD requirements, to which 74,361 supporters have signed as of this posting.
“It is a good and constructive approach to encouraging Filipino professionals to continuously learn and broaden their knowledge, but providing the means to do so is the problem. Majority, if not all, of the providers of seminars and trainings are private institutions which charge a hefty sum of money for a seminar that doesn’t even come near the required units.
“For us, this means having to take a leave from our jobs just to attend a lot of seminars to reach the required units. The leaves would be unpaid for some employees, but will still be a burden for those with paid leaves since they could have used it for family bonding or other significant things,” Lavapie said.
Professionals asked that the government provide free and accessible trainings before they comply with the CPD law.
The list of required units can be found here: http://prc.gov.ph//uploaded/documents/ANNEXJ-MATRIXFORGRANTINGCPDCREDITUNITS(updated).pdf
Source: Change.org
Photo credit:planetphilippines.com
