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CHAIR OF THE LA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TELLS PRESIDENT RAJAPAKSA OF HER INTERST IN LANKA NURSES

By Walter Jayawardhana

Acting Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Yvonne Burke told President Mahinda Rajapaksa that she was sure about the high caliber of Sri Lanka Registered Nurses and the Sri Lanka government and other California based health care trainers should make a coordinated effort to utilize the Sri Lankan nurses to address the acute shortage of nurses in California.

“Judging from the high standards maintained by the other Sri Lankans professionals in the Country I am sure a high quality of service could be obtained from Sri Lankan nurses for the County’s health services,” said Ms. Burke addressing President Rajapaksa.

Burke expressed her enthusiasm about Sri Lanka nurses when President Mahinda Rajapaksa was received at the office of the County Board of Supervisors at 500 West Temple Road in downtown Los Angeles, September 28.

The five member Board of Supervisors of the County of Los Angeles is the governing body of the county government and it has the unique function of serving as the executive and legislative branch of the county government.

During President Rajapaksa’s visit the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Zev Yarolslavsky was on leave and Yvonne B. Burke was acting Chairman pro-tem.

Acting Chair Burke said this was the first time a Sri Lankan head of state has visited a California city and it was a historical opportunity.

During the discussions it has been pointed out that there was a dearth both of Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN) as well as Registered Nurses (RN) in the state of California. California Nurses are some of the best paid nurses in the United States. Many young people show less interest in entering the profession due to the long years of education to become nurses and hence bigger expenses to receive the education.

Registered Nurses are the equivalent of Sri Lanka’s RN’s and LVN’s are a nursing category who are lesser in training than the RN’s . Both categories are certified after sitting for a board examination conducted by the Board of Registered Nursing and Board of Licensed Vocational Nursing , two different statutory bodies. Sri Lankan Nurses are currently allowed to sit for any of these Board examinations respectively. There are few Sri Lanka Nurses employed in California hospitals currently. Their medium of education had been Sinhala in Sri Lanka but they faced the California board examinations in English. Before being qualified to sit for any of these board examinations they must convince the respective boards of their training and certification in Sri Lanka irrespective of the medium of instruction they had undergone their training. Their registration at the Medical Council is also essential. The examinations conducted by these boards are based on multiple choice questions rather than essay writing questions and for nurses with a fair knowledge of English language reportedly did not become a great barrier.

In these initial discussions establishing nursing courses in Sri Lanka oriented more towards the California nursing board examinations were discussed. They agreed to discuss the proposed coordination further as a field where more of Sri Lanka‘s young talents could receive employment. At present, California hospitals are flooded with Filipino nurses . The Philippines is a nation where many nurses training institutes are oriented towards educating nurses for California hospitals. Some of them provide the nursing education in the English medium.

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