Amid the financial turmoil in Europe, Britain is slowing down on the hiring of foreign nurses, including those from the Philippines, according to British Ambassador to the Philippines Stephen Lillie.

Lillie acknowledged that since Britain’s “economy needs to be back in shape,” this would impact on the hiring of foreign nurses to allow the government to spend for other social and medical insurance of British subjects.
There are around 200,000 Filipinos in the United Kingdom, majority of them working as highly paid nurses and caregivers.

Since 1994, the British envoy said both the UK and the United States had increased the hiring of nurses and medical staff from foreign countries like the Philippines for their increasing elderly population.

“But now we have to slow down on the hiring of nurses,” Lillie said in an interview at the launch of a support campaign for the Public-Private Partnership program of the Aquino administration.

But he said the slowdown is only temporary until “the economy is back in shape.” The United Kingdom has also suffered from riots and looting that stemmed from the police killing of a 21-year-old British subject.  Lillie said the situation has since stabilized. (Estrella Torres)