A LEGISLATOR asked the Department of Labor and Employment to suspend the overseas deployment of nurses for the duration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) containment effort.
“(Labor and Employment) Secretary (Silvestre H.) Bello (III) should suspend the sending of nurses abroad. We need our health care personnel here at this time of public health emergency to attend to sick Filipinos, and not to foreigners,” Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez said in a statement Monday.
Mr. Rodriguez was responding to reports that Germany was sending a plane to Manila to ferry “at least 75” intensive care unit (ICU) nurses to care for Germans infected with COVID-19.
He said the country’s health care system is overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases and many public and private hospitals are complaining of lack of personnel.
Mr. Rodriguez noted that due to depleted manpower, the Department of Health (DoH) is looking for volunteer doctors and nurses.
“We need those nurses bound for Germany and other jobs overseas to augment our dwindling public health workforce,” he said.
He urged the DoH to refrain from “asking for volunteer doctors and nurses but to instead hire them and pay them professionally at competitive rates.”
He said the recruits should also be given hazard pay and special risk allowance.
“They should be properly compensated. They are our modern-day heroes,” he said.
In an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) on Sunday, ACT-CIS Party-list Representative Eric G. Yap, chair of the House committee on appropriations, said the chamber is willing to allot funds for wages of volunteer health workers equivalent to what their newly-hired counterparts in the government receive.
Mr. Yap said he will discuss with Speaker Alan Peter S. Cayetano an increase in the budget for volunteer health workers. Legislators will also meet with budget officials to discuss appropriations, he added. — Genshen L. Espedido
