Nurses from off-island who want to take the nursing licensure exam or NCLEX here in the Commonwealth are being made to wait for months on end with no feedback or response to their inquiries about the processing of their applications\u2014a recurring problem with seemingly no concrete solution in sight.<\/p>\n
Glynnis Amalthea Pearson, a registered nurse in the Philippines, sent her application along with her other documents as well as the application fee of $110 to the CNMI Board of Nursing last June.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very disappointed with the Board of Nursing because I have been trying to contact them since August regarding my eligibility status but didn\u2019t get a response from them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pearson said she resigned from work last May as a neonatal intensive care unit nurse in order to prepare for her application and review for the NCLEX exam.<\/p>\n
Another nurse from the Philippines, Adela Oblena, also sent her application and payment last June and began following up in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t received any response from emails and nobody is answering their phone. The voicemail isn\u2019t set up for me to leave a message,\u201d Oblena said.<\/p>\n
Only last Thursday, four months after they submitted their requirements, and only after reaching out to the Office of the Governor and to the media, did the two nurses finally heard from the CNMI Board of Nursing.<\/p>\n
According to Carol Fleming, office manager of the CNMI Board of Nursing, it\u2019s hard for her to respond to application updates as she is the only staff manning the board\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of applicants tend to come and email but as you can see I\u2019m the only staff here. So when I\u2019m out for errands, doing errands for the office, of course nobody\u2019s going to be here to sit down and email,\u201d Fleming said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only NCLEX, it\u2019s also renewal of license, license verification, that we deal with. It\u2019s actually all-in-one through me,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
According to Fleming, their office receives 60 to 100 applications in a month and about 30 to 70 will complete all the requirements for the applications, which will then be forwarded to the board for review. Once forwarded, it\u2019s up to the board, she said, and there is no set timeline as to how long it may or may not be approved.<\/p>\n
Fleming said she receives up to 60 follow-up emails every day but as she is by herself, it is hard for her to respond to everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as having to hear from us, like I said, it\u2019s very hard for me to sit down in front of the computer all day answering emails,\u201d Fleming said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot just assume. I have to pull out their files and see the status so that\u2019s time consuming as well,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Fleming said they usually wait until an applicant completes their requirements, and the length of time they get approved also depends on how fast an applicant completes his or her documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost applicants send their application separately with the requirements. They can send their application a month from now or two months from now. That\u2019s the thing, sometimes they don\u2019t send everything at one time,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cI can\u2019t forward that [application] to the board for review unless the requirements are complete. As long as it\u2019s complete, then I forward it to the board for review.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually tell the applicants to follow up at least within two weeks but actually there is no timeline [as to how long until they can get approval],\u201d Fleming added.<\/p>\n
She said there is already a move to add more staff to their office.<\/p>\n
Aside from the lack of personnel, Fleming also noted the challenges that the island has faced over the past months.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you are aware we have that islandwide outage in July and then the typhoon again in August. All of those have caused delays with everything else that\u2019s gone in the office,\u201d Fleming said.<\/p>\n
She urged applicants to be patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe patient. Unfortunately, I\u2019m the only one here. I try my best to process everything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, this is not the first time the Saipan Tribune has received complaints about the lack of action and feedback from the CNMI Nursing Board. This has been a constant occurrence for many years now, such that the CNMI has already gained a reputation among nursing review centers abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called one of the review center here in our country and they don\u2019t recommend their students to apply [on] Saipan anymore because of that problem regarding the nursing board,\u201d said Pearson. \u201cHopefully they would update their contact numbers on their website and add additional staff so that they could accommodate their applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why I applied in Northern Mariana Islands is that they don\u2019t require SS number from their applicants,\u201d she added. \u201cOther states in the United States require SS number which is difficult for me to secure because I don\u2019t have a US visa yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping that their system can improve so that it will not be difficult for foreign nurses to follow up regarding their application status,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nurses from off-island who want to take the nursing licensure exam or NCLEX here in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[7672,1089,63,7673],"class_list":["post-212693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-glynnis-amalthea-pearson","tag-nclex","tag-philippines","tag-ss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}