The government's pandemic task force has approved the recommendation to increase the annual deployment ceiling of new-hire healthcare workers to 7,000, Malacañang announced.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles made the statement after the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) temporarily suspended the processing and deployment of healthcare workers on November 4, 2021. This was after the annual deployment cap of 6,500 has been reached.
In his press briefing on Friday, December 10, Nograles said the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases approved the increase on Thursday.
"Upon the authority vested to the IATF through Memorandum from the Executive Secretary dated November 20, 2020, the 2021 annual deployment ceiling of new hire healthcare workers for occupations identified by the Department of Labor and Employment as Mission Critical Skills shall be further increased to 7,000," he said.
In addition, the acting Palace spokesman said nurses whose visas shall expire by December 31, 2021, shall be prioritized.
The Philippines has temporarily banned the deployment of healthcare workers in March last year when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic started.
The ban was lifted in November 2020 and the government set a ceiling of 5,000 health workers up for deployment every year.
In June this year, the IATF increased the deployment cap of healthcare workers to 6,500 following calls for the government to allow more new-hire healthcare workers for Mission Critical Skills (MCS) to be deployed overseas.
Malacañang, however, said healthcare workers under government-to-government labor agreements were exempted from this adjusted ceiling.
The government has decided to limit the deployment of HCWs to ensure that the country has an adequate number of medical workers amid the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.