This story is not mainstream, yet common among nurses who left home and family to pursue opportunities abroad. Why did they leave their families, you ask? So that they can provide better futures for those very same loved ones. Sure, those nurses, myself included, are able to earn better wages and have better means to provide for those they have left behind. However, at what cost?

Leaving the Family for Greener Pastures

If you happen to be working with a Filipino or Filipina nurse (or maybe from other cultures as well) about why they left home, I can almost guarantee with 100% certainty that they will answer:

I want to work in the land of milk and honey (aka the United States of America). Or maybe in other countries wherein the currencies are dollars, Euros, or pounds!

You see, early on, we have been mentally programmed that there are better and bigger opportunities beyond the 7,000 plus islands of the archipelago. While other professions are sought abroad, nothing comes as close to how lucrative those career breaks are for nurses. So much so that nurses are the foremost export of the Philippines.

Sadly, brain drain is still happening even in the 21st century!

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The Common Rationale

Some nurses leave home and country to really pursue professional growth, that much is true! However, most leave for the very reason why nursing is a lucrative career in the first place – to be paid better wages!

Why the desire to make more money, you wonder?

So they will be able to help augment the family’s meager income. Nurses who are parents dream to send their children to very good schools and they cost money. Nurses with older parents do it to provide for the latter’s health and medical needs. Orphaned nurses like me send younger siblings to school.

For the most part, we do meet our financial goals, thankfully. We do not only manage to establish good practices and start building a decent living. More importantly, we are able to assist each of our families back home.

The Tradeoff

Nurses who migrate for better opportunities have to endure a lot before they can adjust to living in a different country. They encounter more challenges working with and taking care of culturally diverse colleagues and patients, respectively.

Leaving one’s family, friends, and home is never easy. Uprooting yourself from the usual realities of life and replanting to a different shore is a daunting and exhausting task.

I should know, I did that in my young 20s when I didn’t have a clue about how the world works. Thankfully, God sent very helpful and generous people who guided me on my path.

Personally, I don’t know any single nurse who never had any challenge when they first left home. Everyone has a story to tell, full of laughter, tears, and everything in between. The struggle was mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and even physical.

It is still fresh on my mind how I marked X on my paper calendar every single shift that I completed and every single day that passed. I was beyond sad that all I wanted was to go home after my contract was over. I gave myself two years… That was decades ago!

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The Heart-wrenching Prospect of Not Being Able to Care for One’s Family

We take care of our patients in the best way we know how. We provide quality, holistic, and person-centered care to each of those entrusted to our care.

I don’t know about you but for every patient I took care of in my clinical career, I treated them as a member of my own family. Every child was my own and every adult is an aunt or uncle. I even saw the face of my mother in each of the dying.

And then a nurse gets the most dreaded phone call or text message:

Mom is sick.  She had a stoke. She needs physical therapy and rehab.

That poor nurse is torn: should he or she work overtime shifts to make money to help with the finances? Or should he or she go home to take care of mom?

While everyone understands the fact about leaving home for financial reasons, the inability to care for a loved one is not as common. As someone who has unfortunately experienced it, it was like being punched in a gut! It is like being deprived of air for a moment or two!

Feeling Useless as a Nurse

When one gets those kinds of calls or text messages, it is like running around with one’s head cut off. It’s similar to choosing between a rock and a hard place. Sure, it is very practical to make and send money home. But it is just as important to render care to a family member the way we do to our patients here. We want our loved ones to experience that same best quality, holistic, and person-centered care we provide every shift we work.

Most nurses will choose the practical option. Packing up and going home to take care of a sick family member is almost always never easy. How long of a vacation benefit does one have? Remember that most nurses earn hourly wages. In a nutshell: No Work No Pay! In the midst of mounting hospital bills and post-hospitalization expenses, this is not an acceptable alternative!

So what’s a poor nurse to do? Basically, he or she has to keep a stiff upper lip and work as much as he or she can.

It is really sad. Nevertheless, it is the undeniable truth!

I don’t know about you, but I did feel useless as a nurse during those times. Regrets? Yes, I did have so many. A lot of what-ifs, too!

What if I was home? Would Tatay (my father) have survived his heart attack? Would I have been able to, as a nurse, identify subtle physical changes and subsequently prevented his sudden demise?

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Some Truths are Hard to Swallow

I beat up myself when I have thoughts like these at times. After all, I am just human. However, I cannot wallow in my what-ifs and self-blame. What good does it do to anyone anyway?

Just like the patients that we take care of abroad, our families back home have their own health courses to go through. Whether they end up being completely healed or otherwise, sometimes, we just have to accept the fact that some truths are indeed hard to swallow.

And yes, I am convincing myself to live with this just as much as I am informing you!

It is harder to live with the mortality of our loved ones if we haven’t had a hand in their healing process. At least, this is how I feel about that.

Despite my immediate family’s assurances and support, I still feel that tinge of guilt whenever I cannot physically care for a member of my family. Will I ever get over it?

That is a decade’s old question I have yet to find an answer for!

What about you? Do you also feel torn when your loved one is sick and you cannot take care of them? How do you cope if and when those self-depreciating feelings manifest themselves?