SENATE Minority Leader Ralph Recto on Thursday said he will question Health Department officials on their plan to pull out a battalion of doctors and a division of nurses from the war against diseases and from the campaign for wellness.
“I will ask Health officials to explain the personnel cuts when they appear before the Senate this month to justify their proposed P141.6-billion budget for 2017,” Recto said.
He said he also wanted to know if local governments were paying the doctors and nurses assigned to them.
“Is there a hiring binge in local government units using local funds? Or could it be due to an across-the-board decline in the number of sick people, that diseases are down?” Recto said.
“Are there few applicants that they want to bring it down to a more realistic level?” Or is it simply a case of not having enough funds to bankroll the assignment of these people?”
Recto said he believed the department “has been forced to cut the number of ‘untenured’ personnel due to the need to provide budget space for the second round of salary increases under the Salary Standardization Law IV.”
Due to the funding lack, he said, the Senate should transfer funds to the second round of salary increases to be sourced from non-essential items in the proposed 2017 national budget.
While fewer doctors, nurses and dentists would be dispatched, he said, the number of medical technologists and midwives hired would stay at 308 and 3,100, respectively.
And from 713 public health associates deployed this year, the department is asking for funds to hire 2,587 implementers of the Universal Health Coverage and 2,803 public health associates whose job descriptions are not, however, stated in the department’s proposal.
“Are they going to replace our doctors and nurses? If they are the ones to replace them, we are ready to listen to the explanation of the [department]. I am hopeful there’s a good basis,” Recto said.
“I am keeping an open mind and hope to be convinced why such personnel changes are needed for public health to be served better.”
In all, 21,118 health professionals paid by the Health Department are being sent to public hospitals, rural health units, and clinics run by local governments with a budget of P7.1 billion. Although this funding level will be retained next year, the number of personnel hired will go down to 18,825.
