IATF backs lifting of deployment ban on health staff with contracts
FILIPINO medical workers with already existing contracts may soon be allowed to work abroad.
In a statement, chief presidential legal counsel Salvador S. Panelo said the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on Monday recommended the lifting of the deployment ban imposed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for 14 medical occupations.
Under the recommendation, he said “those [Filipino medical workers] with existing perfected employment contracts will be able to leave.”
Panelo said, “I also sent a memo to PRRD [President Rodrigo R. Duterte] recommending the lifting of the travel ban on health workers with perfected contracts.”
The IATF resolution is subject to the approval of the President.
However, Panelo claimed the resolution may as well be deemed approved since the President “has
not disapproved any recommendation made by the IATF.”
POEA administrator Bernard P. Olalia declined comment on the matter for the meantime since there are “several provisions in the IATF resolution which are relevant and must be explained.”
Olalia told the Businessmirror in an SMS, “We wait for the final language of the IATF reso [resolution].”
Large impact
ON April 2, 2020, the POEA governing board issued Resolution No. 9, series of 2020, temporarily suspending the deployment of OFWS under 14 medical occupations, including doctors and nurses, until the lifting of the national state of emergency due to the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
In a radio interview on Monday, Olalia said the measure aims
HEALTH workers process specimens at a testing area at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City. About 150 people from the city took part in the pilot community-based testing for coronavirus disease Monday, April 13, according to the QC Health Department.
to ease the shortage of health-care workers as well as protect OFWS, particularly those in the medical field, from the soaring Covid-19 cases abroad.
Citing data from the Department of Health (DOH), he said the country already has a shortage of around 290,000 medical workers.
“There are so many in the pipeline, especially those under the government-to-government arrangement. If we allow them to leave, our health-care system will collapse,” Olalia said.
The move was heavily criticized by medical workers and even the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for allegedly violating the right to travel of affected OFWS.
The Philippine Nursing Association (PNA) said its members, including those who are bound for abroad, are open to cooperate with the government amid the Covid-19 crisis, but it stressed that proper compensation for medical workers should be given by the government.
Proper compensation
THE coalition of the country’s biggest labor groups on Monday demanded full-time employment for health-care workers who will be hired by the Department of Health (DOH) in the ongoing fight against Covid-19.
Nagkaisa lauded the DOH’S announcement at the weekend that it will hire 857 health-care workers for deployment in its three Covid-19 referral hospitals.
It, however, expressed concern the workers will be employed on a temporary basis for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis.
“We, however, urge the DOH that these health workers be hired as part of the civil service not merely as on ‘contracts of service,’ which is a precarious working arrangement,” Nagkaisa chairman Sonny Matula said in a statement.
Nagkaisa asked that health workers who responded to the government’s initial appeal for volunteers be given priority for employment.
“Health workers who earlier volunteered themselves should be prioritized in the hiring and be upgraded as health workers with salaries, depending on their qualifications, equivalent to the salary grades (SG) of their functions, like [for] nurses, to SG [salary grade] 15 to 18 or doctors, SG 21 to 24,” Matula said.