I AM writing this column on my way to a meeting with Pflegen & Wohnen Hamburg, the operator of 12 nursing homes that have about 3,000 beds in Germany. We will be discussing the first steps of our newest public-private partnership (PPP) project, through which we will be offering vocational geriatric training in the Philippines as part of the Philippine Healthcare Initiative (PHI).
PHI is a project that contributes to the overall improvement of health-care facilities and nursing homes in the Philippines, enabling the country to demonstrate its excellence, address transparency, lead clients to make easier choices and market the Philippines as a long-stay and medical-travel destination, and assist in building the regulatory environment.
The geriatric sector is growing in the Philippines; in 2013 it had more than 7 million senior citizens. Dementia cases reached 169,000 in 2005, and are expected to hit 316,000 by 2020 and 1.2 million by 2050. This will make the Philippine the country with the highest number of such cases in the region.
Because of this increase, a new trend can be seen: the establishment of more assisted-living facilities and nursing homes. Ten years ago not a single nursing home could be found in the Philippines. Today we have about 250 beds in about 15 such homes in Subic, Zambales; Laguna; Manila; Iloilo; Tagaytay, Cavite; and Cebu.
These facilities and home-care providers are in need of highly specialized geriatric care. As of now, knowledge about the proper care of geriatric patients is limited, because there is no geriatric education offered.
While nursing education in the Philippines is of high quality and recognized by many countries, it has several disadvantages for those who want to work in a nursing home. Nursing is a Bachelor of Science course, and universities offering it apply the classroom-teaching approach, which leaves students lacking in bedside training. Furthermore, the geriatric-care content is limited to a few hours, and gerontopsychiatric approaches are nonexistent.
This leads to a shortage of nurses who can provide specialized care to people with dementia and other cognitive diseases.
The geriatric-curriculum PPP will develop geriatric education as an add-on module for registered nurses. The students will be employed by nursing homes while receiving in-depth classroom-based lessons and bedside training that will make their geriatric education holistic. The curriculum will provide a foundation of knowledge and skills to meet the unique requirements of the aging population for health care and quality of life.
As a training ground, PHI will only be choosing nursing homes that have been a part of its “Human Touch” program, in which quality-management systems are implemented in different institutions to provide an environment with standardized, high-quality care.
Nurses who finish the training course will have good chances of becoming head nurses in those facilities or working as geriatric nurses abroad.
Filipinos are known to possess the “human touch”, which is important when caring for the elderly. This makes Filipino nurses very attractive to foreign markets that urgently need geriatric nurses. In 2014 Germany alone had a shortage of 14,000 geriatric nurses, and it is expected that more than 100,000 will be needed until 2030. This makes geriatric-nursing education a very attractive niche segment for Filipino nurses.
If you want to participate in this new and exciting industry, PHI is searching for nurses and trainers with an extensive background in the health-care, geriatric or related industries, as well as with strong research and teaching experience. They will undergo comprehensive training in a geriatric institute in Germany and are expected to develop with PHI a geriatric curriculum that will be adapted to the Philippine environment, manage the overall development of the curriculum and impart their knowledge to trainers from Philippine health-care institutions.
Interested parties can send their applications to marc@rhc.com.ph.
Marc Daubenbuechel is the executive director of the Retirement & Healthcare Coalition and the director of the Philippine Healthcare Initiative.