Tacloban City, —The Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) has started accepting applications for its second batch of nurses who will train to earn an income in Eastern Visayas under the government's Nurses Assigned in Rural Services (Nars) program

Regional director Forter Puguon said Tuesday that the Labor department has started accepting applications for 600 slots as the first batch of nurses was to complete Wednesday its six-month Nars training in the region's impoverished municipalities.

Puguon said the Nars program was part of the government's efforts to generate jobs for unemployed workers to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis on the Filipino workforce.

As with the first batch, new applicants who qualify would be deployed in their hometowns in rural areas to undergo training in public health services and clinical functions under the guidance of allied hospitals and other medical facilities.

“The purpose (of Nars) is to enable them (applicants) to be in a better position to get employed through this specialized training,” Puguon said.

Under the Nars program, each nurse-trainee would get a monthly stipend of P8,000, but some municipalities gave an additional stipend of P2,000-P8,000 to each trainee in the first batch, he added.

Puguon said that nurses interested in the program should be 35 years old and below, must have a valid nurse license issued by the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC), must be a resident of a Nars-beneficiary municipality and has had no nursing-related practice for one to three years.

For the first batch, the department had deployed 488 nurses in 113 of the 115 identified beneficiary-municipalities, Puguon said.

While the DOLE has allocated 575 slots for the region at five nurses for each qualified municipality, he explained that two towns did not have an applicant while the others had less than five applicants.

Puguon said there were no applicants for the towns of Jipapad in Eastern Samar and Silvino Lobos in Northern Samar.

He also disclosed that seven towns in Eastern Samar had less than five applicants-two applicants each for San Policarpo, Quinapundan, Balangiga and Giporlos and one applicant each for Maslog, Arteche and Lawaan.

However, only 481 completed the training program because some of them dropped out for different reasons, Puguon said.

Pugon said DOLE would deploy around 600 nurses to different parts of the region for the second batch of trainees. More slots were opened for the incoming batch because more municipalities were added and some big companies have offered to sponsor additional nurses.

DOLE is implementing the Nars program in coordination with the Department of Health and PRC.