A nurses' group reiterated its appeal to the national government to totally lift the deployment ban on healthcare workers.
"The very reason why some of our nurses are pushed to leave the country is because of the very low salary and the lack of appreciation that our government is giving to our nurses here," said Filipino Nurses United (FNU) President Maristela Abenojar in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel on Wednesday, June 23.
She said that the country has enough healthcare workers.
"We know very well that by statistics itself, we have enough nurses in the country," said Abenojar.
Abenojar also lamented the cap on the annual overseas deployment of health care workers.
"For us, the 5,000 cap actually is unnecessary and it is not just for our nurses who have already processed all the documents and necessary papers for having a better work opportunity outside the country," she said.
"Some of them are really desperate already because they feel that our government is not listening carefully, attentively, to their plight. That is why the FNU demands that this cap must be lifted totally for the sake of our nurses," she added.
On June 16, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said that the country is in need of more medical workers, particularly in the provinces.
“As of now ho, ngayon, nangangailangan talaga na marami sa mga provinces na mga healthcare workers lalo na itong augmentation para ho masagot itong pandemic na ito (As of now, many of the provinces really need healthcare workers in order to respond to this pandemic),” Vega then said.
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Meanwhile, the government increased the annual cap on the overseas deployment of healthcare workers to 6,500, as announced by Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque last Friday, June 18.