Japanese program to recruit foreign nurses struggles as its elderly population swells.

[pampango]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/100822/health-care-nurses

It was supposed to be the perfect solution to a seemingly intractable problem: how to care for the sick and elderly in a country suffering from a declining, and quickly graying, population. Japan’s decision in 2008 to invite nurses and caregivers from Indonesia and the Philippines to fill gaping holes in its health service was hailed as proof of a new spirit of openness in a country that has traditionally shunned large numbers of skilled workers from abroad.

But three years after the first batch of trainees arrived from Southeast Asia, the scheme, for all its good intentions, is in tatters. Of the 254 Indonesian and Filipino health workers who took the first round of Japanese-language nursing examinations this year, just three were successful.

Yet in hospitals and care facilities across Japan, the need for an influx of new staff is clear. More than one-fifth of Japan’s population is over 65, and people in that age group will account for more than 40 percent of the total population by 2055, according to projections by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Tokyo.

The government, meanwhile, is predicting a huge shortfall in the number of caregivers for the elderly within the next two decades. But rather than being welcomed as the potential saviors of a public service that is close to breaking point, foreign nurses have encountered inflexible bureaucracy, language skills that would test most native Japanese speakers, and a local nursing community that views their presence with barely concealed contempt.

“When negotiations began with the Philippines government, opponents tried to limit the number of foreign nurses to between 10 and 20. That makes me feel ashamed. The attitude seemed to be, ‘There is no way we can have foreigners’ hands touching the bodies of Japanese patients.’ “I was overjoyed when this system was put in place, so when I see how it has worked out, I am bitterly disappointed.”