Leave with pay privilege for cancer patients pushed
Citing the alarming number of cancer cases in the country, a House of Representatives leader wants to grant cancer patients a one-month paid leave privilege to allow them to undergo treatment.
Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo filed House Bill 5174 to grant all cancer patients a maximum of 30 days paid leave to allow them to undergo treatment, provided that they have been employed for at least one year at the time of availment.
“The bill contemplates on granting adequate days of paid leave to cancer patients. Their having contracted the disease is bad enough and their having to worry about their work remissness should be their least concern,” he said.
“Among all the other critical diseases, cancer entails the most intensive treatment. Cancer treatment takes a lot of time and patients with the dreaded disease should be accorded reasonable leeway in order to go through the treatment,” Castelo pointed out.
He said the alarming incidence of cancer cases in the Philippines prompted him to file the proposed Cancer Treatment Leave Act.
The chairman of the House Committee on Metro Manila Development noted that the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Cancer Society, Inc. confirmed the high prevalence of breast cancer in the country.
Citing the 2010 Philippine Cancer Facts and Estimates report, breast cancer is the most common cancer in the Philippines taking at least 16 percent of the 50,000 cases diagnosed with the cancer.
“The government should make it a policy to support cancer patients in every possible way and allowing them to be treated without losing their capacity to earn would be a moral and rational act on the part of the government. This positive and encouraging gesture would bolster the hope of the cancer patients to look forward to the road of healing as optimistically as they possibly can,” Castelo said.
HB 5174 provides that the amount necessary for the implementation of the proposed Act shall be charged against the appropriations for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) under the current General Appropriations Act.