First group of Filipino nurse recruits to mark 15 years in Wales

Some of the nurses recruited from the Philippines 15 years ago were employed by the Royal Gwent Hospital in Wales, UK. NUH BOARD

SAN FRANCISCO – They came to Gwent, Wales as the first Filipino nurses who were part of a recruitment drive, and now they are celebrating their 15th anniversary of living in the UK.

On July 4 this year, a special event will be held at the Parkway Hotel and Spa in Cwmbran to commemorate their 15 years of experiences and memories, according to a report by the South Wales Argus.

Some of their mentors and former bosses will join them, as well as the coordinators who supported them in their first year of settling into Wales.

Sixty nurses came in 2001 to work for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board as part of the first group of recruits from the Philippines.

Forty were sent to the Royal Gwent Hospital, while 20 were employed at Nevill Hall hospital, in Abergavenny.

Novelita Alzate, a theatre nurse from Newport, who helped organize the celebration, arrived at the Royal Gwent in 2001, aged 29.

Now working as a nurse with pioneering robotic surgeries in Cardiff, she said, “We would like to see all these people who helped us.”

Her daughter, now 16, joined her in the UK six months after she arrived, and her husband also lives with them in the UK now.

She said further: “We are a big community now, quite a close community now and we like to have these gatherings.”