Celica Mabalot came to Rochester from the Philippines last summer on an H1-B visa to work for Rochester Regional Health.
She was recruited through Greater ROC Global, a recruitment program launched nearly a year ago by the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce focused on addressing worker shortages in health care and advanced manufacturing across the region.
“Adjusting is not easy,” Mabalot said. “Being in a new culture of health care, it's not easy, but the team educators, the leaders, they support it as well.”
Mabalot has been assigned to Rochester General’s cardio thoracic unit as an operating room nurse. She is one of roughly 150 international nurses who have relocated to Rochester in recent months through the program.
But recruitment has slowed since the Trump Administration last fall imposed an added $100,000 fee for visa holders to enter the United States.
“When you add a large amount of money for each individual nurse, that puts a damper on your ability to bring those nurses here,” said Dan Ireland, executive vice president, chief nursing executive and patient care officer for RRH.
Global nursing has become “a really important piece of healthcare, and a really good piece of it, ” he said. But the added fee is forcing the system to pivot to other options.
“At some point, you have to decide on where's the money best spent in health care,” Ireland said. “Because we want to be good stewards of our health care dollars across our region and across the country.”
The Philippines is a major source of nurse recruits. And Mabalot said she has colleagues there waiting to come to America and work.
Ireland confirmed at least 80 nurses are awaiting a visa. But he said Rochester Regional might have to start looking at other countries that don't require the work visa like Puerto Rico, Canada, and Australia.
“This isn't about just getting people, but it's getting the right people,” Ireland said. “Because the quality of health care is equally as important as the provision of health care.”
For Mabalot, the increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration policies and rhetoric is leading to difficult choices.
“My experience here is better (than in the Philippines),” she said. “I'm learning new s kills. I've learned more high-tech machines.”
But Mabalot said she and her colleagues feel forced, now, to stay put. Because of concern about going home to visit family and friends, and not being able to return.
