There are around 124,000 licensed and registered Filipino nurses who are unemployed, underemployed, or undertaking non-related jobs.

Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte proposed that the DOH should track these nurses down and try to persuade the majority of them who are unemployed to work in government hospitals as a way to begin reversing the country's worsening nursing shortage.

Villafuerte made the revelation in response to Health Secretary Ted Herbosa's attempts to hire nursing graduates who failed the board examinations, which the congressman called hazardous and potentially leading to "a cure worse than the disease."

He cited data from the government-accredited national organization Filipino Nurses United (FNU) that revealed: "about 124,000 registered nurses who, as of December 2021, were unemployed, underemployed, or doing non-nursing work."

Villafuerte said that "29,293 nursing graduates combined passed the last two Nursing Licensure exams—18,529 in November 2022 and 10,764 in May."

He stated that the National Nursing Advisory Council (NNAC) may prioritize the search for registered nurses and new board passers who are either unemployed or undertaking non-nursing work.

The DOH should do everything possible to persuade unemployed nursing board members to fill the expected 4,500 nurse openings in government hospitals across the country.