Postgraduate scholarship programs aimed at upskilling healthcare workers in the country are in the pipeline, according to the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday.
The DOH, through officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire, partnered with the Philippine-American Educational Foundation (PAEF) in order to provide additional postgraduate scholarship programs for Filipino health workers.
Vergeire and PAEF signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Thursday to develop joint programs to support the development of health professionals and public health practitioners and ensure access to good healthcare for Filipinos.
Learning opportunities in the fields of Health Systems Management, Environmental and Community Health, Health Policy and Administration, Epidemiology and Disease surveillance, and Infectious Disease Control, among others will be opened
Moreover, the DOH said the partnership aims to establish a general framework for facilitating the grant of scholarships and research programs, and enable exchanges under the DOH’s capacity-building and research initiatives under the Universal Health Care Law.
Vergeire said they will also open similar opportunities for job order personnel comprising around 63% of the agency’s entire human resource base.
“Universal Health Care is centered [on] supporting and uplifting people — not just the people who require healthcare services, but also the people who provide those services or those who toil to make those services effective, responsive, and accessible,” Vergeire said.
“As such, it is therefore necessary to pour equal attention to ensuring the growth, development, and wellness of the very people on whom we rely to realize UHC—and, with this MOU, we aim to do exactly that,” Vergeire also said.
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