The decision to allow medical and nursing students to volunteer in implementing government’s National COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment and Vaccination will be major boost to the country’s overall fight against the pandemic, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said on Monday, Nov. 15.
Velasco lauded the decision even as several congressmen vowed to readily provide the legislative backing of the vaccination drive to protect Filipinos from the deadly disease.
Velasco said this development “provides a major boost to the government’s critical public health mission of inoculating 90 percent of the population against the deadly coronavirus.” “By tapping medical and nursing students in the vaccination program, the government will rapidly expand access to COVID-19 vaccines, which is crucial to reaching the herd immunity threshold we need to return to normal life,” the House leader said.
Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez said Congress was expected to immediately act to provide the vaccination campaign a major boost through legislative help had it been sought by government.
Fernandez said he is also ready to author a bill to pursue that objective, adding that legislation for anti-COVID-19 measures have provided government much-needed support in fighting the pandemic.
Velasco is one of the principal authors in the House of Representatives of the COVID 19 Program Act of 2021 that sought to expedite the purchase and administration of COVID-19 vaccines and to set up an indemnity fund.
Velasco said then that the goal was “to make sure that every Filipino will have access to safe and effective vaccine, which is currently the best way for us to beat the virus and move forward.”
Also, as early as May this year, Velasco has been urging the government to tap nursing graduates who have yet to take the board examinations as complementary manpower amid the shortage of health workers in the country.
He said these “underboard” nurses can work under the supervision of a registered nurse or physician through a special arrangement with the Professional Regulation Commission.
Last Saturday, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) announced that post-graduate/undergraduate interns, clinical clerks and fourth-year medicine and nursing students can now become vaccinators and participate in the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
Under a joint memorandum signed by CHED and Department of Health, medical and nursing students can volunteer as health screeners, vaccinators, and pre/post vaccination monitors under the supervision of licensed physicians and nurses.