Sarasota Memorial Hospital hiring foreign nurses as part of plan to alleviate shortage

Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System will bring about 50 nurses and at least six medical technicians from the Philippines between now and early 2023, to help address a nationwide shortage of qualified nurses and healthcare workers that was exacerbated in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarasota Memorial – the county’s largest employer with more than 8,500 staff members – hired 2,349 new staff in the 2021 fiscal year. 

Of those, about 70% were nurses or clinical personnel, with the other 30% hospitality or frontline support staff, SMH spokeswoman Kim Savage said via email.

About 1,000 new staff members were hired as part of the opening of the SMH Venice campus and the oncology tower for the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute.

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While the hospital has an evolving recruitment process, hospital officials started talking with recruiters about foreign nurses in earnest about a year ago.

“The pandemic really tightened the labor market, so it was about this time last year, during the delta (COVID) surge when we expanded that outreach and asked our recruitment agency,” Savage said in a phone interview.

When COVID-19 precautions and travel restrictions were factored in, the process took about a year. In addition to filling out immigration paperwork to receive visas under a federal program for essential health care workers, nurses must also receive a license to practice in Florida and a Social Security number so they can get paid.

“We do go through quite the process with immigration and the lawyers to demonstrate that we pay them the prevailing market rate and we go beyond that and we support them with a lot of different programs that would help them acclimate to Florida,” Savage said. “These are trained nurses but any time you come into a new country and a new hospital, there’s always specific policies and procedures they have to learn as well.”

While other hospitals also seek to hire foreign nurses, two other Sarasota County hospitals, HCA Florida Doctors Hospital and HCA Florida Englewood Hospital, have not gone that route – yet.

“Recruiting foreign nurses is something we are always considering,” HCA Florida Sarasota Doctors Hospital CEO, Bob Meade said in an email provided by spokeswoman Monica Yadav. “We are prioritizing recruiting from our local community, and regions closer to home. 

“We are also working with local schools to recruit and train new caregivers, especially our own Galen College of Nursing, since that’s the future of our workforce,” he added.

HCA Englewood spokeswoman Julie Beatty agreed. 

Graduates of Galen College of Nursing offer HCA a ready supply of employees.

HCA Healthcare purchased a controlling interest in the parent company of Galen College of Nursing in 2020. The school offers a three-year bachelor’s program for nurses and has a campus in Sarasota, near Doctors Hospital.

Foreign recruitment is only one avenue Sarasota Memorial is exploring to hire new professionals, Savage stressed. 

She noted that the hospital has doubled down on statewide recruiting and increased its national recruiting effort.

SMH emphasizes hiring from within the community and the hospital works closely with local high schools “to inspire more students to pursue a nursing career and with the local Suncoast Nursing Action Coalition to support initiatives that provide scholarships, mentoring and support for nursing students training in the Suncoast region.”

Summer arrivals

This summer Sarasota Memorial brought a couple of registered nurses and six medical technicians in from the Philippines.

In addition to the Philippines, Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Africa are all areas that have more nurses than the local infrastructure can employ. SMH officials decided to first reach out to nurses in the Philippines for several reasons.

For one, all eligible nurses from the Philippines have bachelor’s degrees and fluency in English.

Classes in the Philippines – from elementary school through university – are taught in English, noted Jackie Gould, the clinical manager of the orthopedic surgical unit in SMH-Venice.

Gould, a graduate of University of the City of Manilla, earned her degree there in 1995 and emigrated to the United States in 1998.

She started working at Sarasota Memorial in February 2021, after spending more than two decades working with HCA Doctors Hospital.

Gould is also one of several Filipino nurses employed by SMH who have formed a welcoming committee to help ease the transition of their Kababayan – which is Filipino for fellow countrymen or friends.

Gould said nurses often emigrate with two suitcases of possessions and once they arrive, they need basics to start.

“The things that we ignore – utensils, plates, glasses – they don’t have any of that,” she added.

The welcoming committee has been amassing donated items – including linens and used but clean furniture – in a storage unit.

Members of the welcoming committee have offered to pick up their Kababayan from Tampa International or Sarasota Bradenton International Airport and Gould said they are already considering a host family program with other members of the local Filipino community.

Life-changing experience

When Gould was attending the University of the City of Manilla, she wasn’t planning to emigrate to the United States, but about 90% of the classmates she knew were.

Registered nurses who receive their degree in Manilla go on to land jobs elsewhere, such as in Singapore, the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, Gould said, but their ultimate dream is to work in the United States.

There is a great incentive for Filipino nurses to work internationally, since the RNs make between $450 and $550 a month if they find a job in the Philippines.

The minimum prevailing wage for a newly graduated RN at Sarasota Memorial is $27.09 an hour, Savage said via text. That can increase, based on experience, specialty certifications and shift differentials.

That starting salary of $56,347.20 is slightly above the prevailing wage for newly graduated RNs, she added.

In addition to the increased salary, Sarasota Memorial offers to cover travel expenses for the foreign nurses.

There is also culture shock after arriving in a new country.

The nearest Jollibee and Red Ribbon Pastry Shop – prominent fast-food and comfort food providers in the Philippines – are in Pinellas Park and only opened in recent years.

“When I moved here, besides the culture shock – it’s a very different way of life,” Gould said. “Just imagine yourself putting everything you have in two suitcases, moving to a different country.”

“It’s basically a very life-changing experience for me, for sure, and I’m sure it will be for them,” Gould said. “The committee wants to provide that team support so we were very excited when we heard there were so many nurses coming here and med techs as well.”

The welcome committee formed at the end of July, shortly after the nurses learned about the hospital’s effort to recruit nurses from the Philippines and they started working with Laurie Bennett, the executive director for human resources for SMH, and Lisa Blaser, employment manager for the Venice campus.

“It started with let’s come up with a welcome basket so we can make them feel at home and welcome them and as we thought through the process, now it’s more of a welcome hamper,” Gould said.

Since many Filipino women don’t drive – their spouses drive them around – Gould said she urges the women to take driving lessons too.

Some of the nurses arrive with their families, some are single. All need to find housing in the Sarasota area.

Gould is helping those new nurses get a head start on finding a place to live.

She has navigated through online real estate listings and explained to skeptical apartment complex managers why the incoming nurses do not yet have Social Security numbers, but will once they have their paperwork complete.

Two single nurses, set to arrive in October, decided to room together, to cut down on expenses, while families searched for potential homes near schools.

“Some want to go ahead and sign a lease agreement before they move, some want to come, stay in a hotel first and then sign a lease agreement,” Gould said.

Some already have relatives in Florida and may choose to stay with family until they receive their Florida nursing license and Social Security cards.

For those without any relatives, Gould is networking with the Filipino community in the area to find willing host families.

A private Facebook group offers links that can aid with housing choices but also suggestions on schools, churches and oriental markets.

Residency and mentorship

There are many resources that Sarasota Memorial offers to new hires who graduated from all nursing schools, including residency programs that pair new RNs with seasoned, experienced nurses, as well as orientation and mentorship programs.

The new Filipino nurses can also be involved with shadowing programs and take additional prep courses while they’re waiting for the state and federal paperwork that will allow them to work.

Gould noted that helps build rapport with team members and ease the stress of adapting to a new environment.

“One of the biggest challenges is the equipment,” Gould said. “Obviously we are way advanced in medical equipment here and set up.”

Not all of the nurses Sarasota Memorial has hired came directly from the Philippines. Some of the new hires were working in Canada and their immigration paperwork and visas reflected that transition.

Savage said via email that some of the nurses arrive with an EB3 or other applicable visa and later obtain their green card.

She stressed that SMH does not have a contract with the individual nurses but contracts with the agency that helps bring them to the U.S. that typically commits the nurses to working at the hospital for at least three years.

The goal is to attract medical professionals who will become part of the community.

“We really want to build our core nursing group so they’re part of the community, part of SMH, it’s not just a revolving door,” Savage said.

Like other hospitals around the country, Sarasota Memorial uses traveling nurses, too.

Some return seasonally.

Other travel nurses are more transient and seek assignment in different hospitals for personal reasons.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, patient volumes have been higher with less of a dip when snowbirds depart, Savage noted.

Gould, who said she’s thankful that SMH is giving her Kababayan an opportunity to come to the United States, said the welcome committee hopes to keep those medical professionals in Sarasota beyond the initial three-year commitment.

“We don’t want to just bring them here and have them stay here for the number of years their contract is dictating,” she said. “We want them to come here and stay with SMH.”

Incoming nurses have been networking with Filipino nurses destined to work elsewhere in the U.S. have been spreading word about the welcome effort too.

“They’re comparing notes with their peers who ended up in other states, and they were saying, ‘You guys don’t have a welcoming committee, we have a welcoming committee,’” Gould said. “That makes it all worthwhile to go through all this to get things ready for them.”

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.