Malacañang said Thursday the Philippines had enough reserve manpower that could take the place of health workers who leave for better paying overseas jobs.
Palace spokesman Harry Roque made the statement after a group of private hospitals raised concerns over the resignations of staff who are mulling employment abroad after complaining of low pay and poor working conditions.
"We believe we have enough graduates and board passers to take the place of nurses going abroad,” Roque told a press briefing, adding the country had a 6,500 annual overseas deployment cap for newly hired health workers.
The Private Hospital Association of the Philippines on Wednesday said about five percent of its workers resigned in the last two to three weeks alone.
The group's president, Dr. Jose Rene de Grano, said: “If we cannot stop this exodus, perhaps in another six months, we might run out of nurses and our health facilities will be crippled.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Health said out of 526,627 eligible health workers, it had yet to pay 70,714 with their special risk allowance.
Health Assistant Secretary Maylene Beltran said during a Senate budget hearing they were requesting P2.7 billion from the Department of Budget and Management for the SRAs of over 119,000 additional healthcare workers.
“We already have provided 456,013 healthcare workers or 87 percent of our estimated 526,627 eligible potential healthcare workers. As of now, we are still processing 13 percent which is around 70,714 of the total 526,627,” she said.
“We've already given our request to DBM with supplemental justification and supporting papers submitted to DBM last October 15 for another total amount of P2.7 billion to cover additional healthcare workers, which has been requested by various health care facilities and we are still awaiting the response from DBM,” she added.
Senator Panfilo Lacson asked the DOH about the challenges they face which resulted in the delay of SRA payments to the medical frontliners.
In response, Beltran said the delay in payments were due to lack of supporting documents from local government units’ hospitals as well as private healthcare facilities.
“Supporting documents would include memorandum of agreement because we cannot download to these healthcare facilities which are not under the DOH as well as private hospitals without a MOA,” she said.
Lacson also asked the DOH to consider providing SRAs to outsourced non-medical frontliners such as janitors and personnel who handle waste disposal, among others.
“Maybe for those outsourced by the hospital, we advise to include in their contracts the SRA type of assistance to their personnel,” said Lacson.