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| “I would think that [there is] probably at least 100,000 visas…that are pending right now to come to the United States,” he added. (Photo from Inquirer) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] MANILA: There are at least 100,000 Filipino healthcare workers who have pending visas to work in the United States amid a “very high demand” for nurses and doctors in the said country, which is currently facing a high COVID-19 infection rate, Manila’s envoy there said, PH Inquirer reported. “There are quite a number of pending visas for nurses from the Philippines that I think are being considered now very seriously that they’d like to bring them over. These are nurses that have already been approved [of] moving to the United States as health workers,” Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Romualdez said in an ANC interview on Thursday.
“I would think that [there is] probably at least 100,000 visas…that are pending right now to come to the United States,” he added. Asked if there is a preference for Filipino health workers in the United States, Romualdez said: “Definitely, there’s no doubt about that." “In all my discussions with the U.S. government people, we inevitably always talk about the nurses, most especially, the kind of people that we have here working in the hospitals. There’s so much appreciation, the demand is very high for Filipino nurses and doctors actually,” he added.
At present, there are around 150,000 to 200,000 Filipino healthcare workers in the U.S., Romualdez noted.
