American Samoa's hospital Chief Executive Officer has defended the decision to hire nurses from Fiji and the Philippines instead of neighbouring Samoa.
In a letter obtained by Radio Polynesia, Moefaauo Bill Emmsley said that to address the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital's shortage-of-nursing conundrum, several plans were hatched.
He said that included recruiting from those two countries and elsewhere as a stop-gap measure.
Moefaauo said last month that a review of the curriculum used at the NUS nursing programme is not up to par with US licensing standards for nurses and this would be a challenge to acquire US certification for nurses from Samoa.
The president of Samoa's Nurses Association, Solialofi Papalii has called on Moefaauo to publically apologise for what he calls "degrading comments" on the curriculum of the nursing school at the National University of Samoa.
Photo file Samoa Nurses Association