The view from the other side

IN the light of the brouhaha over the apparent slight by that stupid show Desperate Housewives against Filipino doctors, here's an opinion piece from Newsday about the 27 Filipino healthcare professionals who supposedly abandoned their jobs of caring for the terminally ill and elderly at Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Smithtown, New York. The Sentosa 27 – as media has dubbed the group because they had been employed by the SentosaCare Recruitment Agency at its facilities – had complained of violations in their work agreement and so resigned en masse after their grievances were not addressed.

Here's the view of one who was affected by the walkout.

Nurses should not leave patients in midshift
By Sharon Bannon
Newsday

Walk the floor where my daughter Jodie lies in her nursing-home bed, and you can hear the sounds of machines keeping people alive.

Many patients are elderly. Some are children. Some have grown old on these machines. In each case, somewhere there is a family member who loves them and prays that one day they will get up, walk to the door and, because they no longer need them, will shut off the machines required for survival.

It’s a faint dream because the vast majority couldn’t, and for the elderly at the end of their days, it’s a question of dying with dignity.

These are the people who are at the center of the controversy over nurses from the Philippines who left their jobs caring for Jodie and the other patients during a labor dispute with the nursing-home management.

The coverage has been a steady drumbeat, with almost daily questions posed in Newsday as to whether influence and access to elected officials brought indictments against the nurses who walked away from my daughter and others on ventilators at the Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation Center in Smithtown.

The questions are relentless, pitting the owners of a nursing home against immigrant nurses who say their work agreement has been violated. (Continued at BusinessMirror)