Wage disparity affecting morale of provincial frontliners – Galvez
The disparity in the wages and benefits of health care workers serves as a “big problem” in the capacity of the country to fully address the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., chief implementer of the National Task
Force (NTF) on COVID-19, reported this to President Duterte during the latter’s public address Monday night.
Such problem, coupled
with the threat of the deadly virus, was among the reasons health care workers in Cebu City were resigning, according to the task force official.
Co-incidentally or not, a surge in the spike of new infections was recently recorded in Cebu City, prompting Duterte to revert its status to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until June 30.
“Sa Cebu City, iyong atin pong sitwasyon ay nai-report ko na po kay Senator Bong Go na talagang ang isang malaking problema po doon ay ‘yung disparity po ng salary ng ano, ng sibilyan at saka ng ano po natin, ng public nurses (In Cebu City, I already reported the situation to Senator Bong Go where the disparity of the salary of civilian [employees] and our public nurses is a big problem),” Galvez told Duterte.
In a Senate hearing on the committee of local government over the weekend, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary for Administration and Financial Management Roger Tong-an said the difference between the salaries of health care workers employed by the national government and by local government units (LGUs) has discouraged some to work in rural and low-income areas.
Tong-an said the national government is currently paying public health doctors, or those working in DOH hospitals, P85,074 monthly aside from the benefits duly accorded to them under existing laws such as the Republic Act No. 7305 or the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers Act.
Meanwhile, rural-based health care workers currently received P50,000 or below monthly, according to Dr. Clemencio Bondoc, Iloilo municipal officer and national president of the Association of Municipal Health Officers of the Philippines.
As such, Galvez said the NTF has been working with Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino to address the looming shortage in public health workers in Cebu City by deploying additional public nurses from the DOH central office in Manila.
“When we went there twice, that’s what we solved right away because a lot of nurses resigned due to fear of getting infected with COVID and, at the same time, the higher salary of our public health workers,” he said.
According to Galvez, the NTF coordinated with DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III for the deployment of 131 public nurses in Cebu City to augment the manpower in the area.
This enabled the four biggest private hospitals in Cebu City to increase its capacity and cater to more patients, he said.
Further, 100 more medical health care workers are currently being recruited by the DOH to sustain its deployment efforts in medicallychallenged areas, Galvez noted.