Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday told the Department of Health (DOH) to explain the year-long delay of hazard pay for healthcare workers and the continuously deteriorating work environment after more than a year into the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Hontiveros said she fully supports the call of health workers for government to improve the work conditions of health workers in the form of periodic COVID-19 testing, immune boosters, free personal protective equipment (PPEs) and continuous hiring of health workers.
The senator pointed out Congress has already extended the P13.5-billion budget under the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or Bayanihan 2 to respond to the needs of health workers, yet Health Secretary Francisco Duque III could not explain why the government could not properly rollout its program for healthcare workers.
“All year long, health workers have made desperate calls for better pay and genuine support,” Hontiveros pointed out in a statement, as the country commemorates Healthcare Workers Day.
“The Health Secretary should stop giving them the cold shoulder, and should explain why he fails to do his job when health workers wholeheartedly do theirs with their lives on the line,” she stressed.
Hontiveros reiterated healthcare workers in the country, who continue to be burnt out by the government’s lack of attention to their needs, deserve safe and decent working conditions.
“Instead of Secretary Duque insisting that all the needs are being met, perhaps he should listen to what the health workers in the hospitals have to say,” Hontiveros reiterated.
“In the middle of a health crisis, an out of touch Health Secretary is the last thing we need,” she remarked.
Hontiveros, who earlier discovered the P1-billion overspent on foreign-made PPEs in 2020, lamented the public funds wasted.
“Limitado na nga ang pondo natin, sinasayang pa (Our funds are limited and yet they wasted it). Every time we purchase anything overpriced, we deduct funds from medicine, temporary treatment facilities, and PPEs which could have gone to saving another life,” she remarked.
The lawmaker said Duque should be humble enough to admit that the government has failed for not doing enough for the country’s healthcare workforce.
“To the Health Secretary, acknowledge that we are not doing enough for health workers and give them the dignity of wages and benefits that can support them and their families’ lives in the middle of a health and economic crisis,” she appealed.