By Abina Peredo
The need for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic escalated to such an extent that nurse Rosary Celaya Castro-Olege came out of retirement to join the frontlines. She became the first healthcare worker in Los Angeles to die from COVID-19. The lack of recognition for Castro-Olege and her Filipino peers prevents us from seeing the lessons that could be learned, especially when we want to figure out why she felt the need to come out of retirement to support her peers.
Despite making up about 4% of the nurse workforce, Filipino nurses make up almost a third of nurse deaths in the U.S. A study suggests that this is due to Filipino healthcare workers being disproportionately represented on the frontline. Specifically, one in four Filipino healthcare workers are found on the frontlines, despite only making up 1% of America’s population.
Why this data is concerning is because the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t America’s first time utilizing Filipino nurses for more riskier positions. A Harvard International Review article states how this history started when Filipino nurses first emigrated to the U.S. in the 1900s. It highlights how America’s colonization over the Philippines was enabled through implementing western-style nursing schools, which later served a purpose for filling America’s nurse shortage.
In a PBS series called Caretakers, nurse Belinda Ellis speaks of her journey from nursing school in the Philippines, to being a nurse amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 wasn’t the first health emergency she experienced as a nurse. She was placed to work with HIV-positive patients as her first career in America. Ellis acknowledged the stigma surrounding HIV due to the lack of information on the disease, and how she was given the role after other health providers refused to give care because of their fear for the unknown.
After making it out of another pandemic, we must learn how to better support our Filipino nurses. We can specifically advocate for Filipino nurses to advance their careers into leadership positions. An article written in the book Gender, Work, & Organization compares the work differences between Filipino and white nurses, finding that Filipino nurses had 10% less advancement opportunities than their white counterparts. Giving space for Filipinos on influential committees allows equitable representation. Decisions regarding unequal distribution of risk among nurses could be made among such boards.
Yet, on a deeper level, we must demand accountability from hospitals with structural bias. Such prejudice further perpetuates America’s colonization over the Philippines’ nursing profession. If circumstances call for Filipinos on the frontline, the healthcare system must meet nurses halfway by ensuring safe working conditions of adequate PPE, full staffing, and a safe work load. Without bringing awareness to the healthcare system’s flaws, our Filipino nurses may not have the support needed to pull us through the next health emergency.
Abina is an undergraduate student at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
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