CHC nurses angling for US work visas

Foreign nurses and other employees at the Commonwealth Health Center fear losing their job once the federal government takes over local immigration by June 1, but they are hopeful that Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez will ease their worries during meetings about the impact of federalization on non-U.S. citizen personnel at the hospital.

“The nurses want U.S. work visas, the H1-B visa,” CNMI Nursing Association member Joey Camero said yesterday.

Camero said foreign employees and immediate relatives of U.S. citizens at the hospital are thankful that there will be a series of meetings with the health secretary regarding the impact of federalization on their immigration status.

“It shows that the hospital leadership is concerned about us. I think everybody will be there during the meeting,” he added.

Department of Public Health human resources manager Marciana D. Igitol issued a one-page memorandum on Tuesday, informing non-U.S. citizen department employees that Villagomez would like to meet with them “to discuss issues regarding federalization takeover come June 2009.”

Because there are a lot of non-U.S. citizen employees at the department, there will be six sessions from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30 of at least one hour each.

Villagomez is currently off island on official business and will be back next week.

Camero said foreign employees have uncertainties about the federalization.

“Either they will grant foreign nurses and doctors a work visa or send us all home. We hope they will consider granting a work visa,” said Camero, who is the head nurse in the emergency room of CHC.

He said many of the non-U.S. citizen nurses in particular would want to continue working at CHC mainly “because they have come to love the CNMI and consider this their home,” and it is close to the Philippines where most of the foreign nurses come from.

“They want job security…right now there’s feeling of uncertainty and instability,” said Camero, who has been a nurse at CHC since 1987.

Health officials earlier expressed concern about the possibility of health workers in the CNMI leaving for the U.S. mainland once they get a U.S. immigration status that will make them eligible to apply for a “green card.”

CHC has an estimated 375 foreign nurses, about 275 of them from the Philippines and the rest mostly citizens of the Freely Associated States, said Camero.