All Filipino nurses recruited to work in the State have to go through an eight-week probationary period during which they are closely monitored by directors of nursing before they are given contracts, the Health Service Executive (HSE) said yesterday.
The HSE's comments came in the wake of a Sunday newspaper report which highlighted an incident earlier this summer in which hundreds of nurses in the Philippines were allegedly given their nursing board exam papers in advance.
Internet searches show the news has also been widely reported in the US and southeast Asia, and that authorities in the Philippines are worried it could damage the demand for Filipino nurses abroad.
Some 7,768 Filipino nurses went to work abroad in 2005 and the top six countries that employ them are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Taiwan, Ireland and the US.
A major investigation into how the exam questions were handed out in advance at three centres has been ongoing since June, when the exams were held and the fiasco came to light.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in the Philippines filed a criminal complaint this month against 17 officials from the three centres. The Department of Justice will now form a panel to conduct a preliminary investigation into the NBI complaint to determine whether there would be basis to file a case against them in court.
More than 17,000 of the 42,000-plus people who took the June exams passed and it has been suggested they should have to resit them. An Bord Altranais, is to seek details of what happened from the Filipino authorities, according to a report in yesterday's Sunday Tribune.