NAGA CITY ? Sen. Francisco Pangilinan said he strongly supports a House bill filed by Laguna Rep. Edgar San Luis seeking to penalize public and private hospitals that ask payment from nurses who have just passed the board exams.

?It?s exploitation,? said Pangilinan who was in Naga City on Wednesday to pay a visit to Mayor Jesse Robredo, a key ally.

Pangilinan said hospitals that give below minimum wage compensation to nursing interns should also be penalized.

He added that nursing interns, who make up the bulk of medical practitioners in hospitals in the country, should be treated fairly.

?I call on nursing interns who are victims of this unfair labor practices to organize themselves and boycott hospitals that either ask payment or give below minimum wage compensation for their residency or internship,? said the senator.

Pangilinan said nursing interns in a similar situation could either negotiate with the hospitals they were working for to raise their compensation or do a ?walkout.?

Naga City Vice Mayor Gabriel Bordado said some hospitals were taking advantage of the nursing interns? desire to have residency experience, which is a must if they want to go abroad, by giving them below minimum wage compensation.

Bordado added that nursing schools should put up offices that would see to it that the nurses they were producing would have jobs.

He said schools should also have a ?no-nonsense? aptitude exam for those who want to take a nursing course to avoid a growing number of nurses that end up jobless soon after graduation.

Hospital residency experience is needed for overseas employment.

Under San Luis? bill, hospitals that charge nurses could be fined as much as P100,000, and their administrators, meted a maximum one-year jail term.