Senator Joel Villanueva is calling on the Department of Health (DOH) to step up its hiring of health personnel by taking in nurses who recently passed the licensure exams.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor issued the appeal on Friday, July 23, as he feared that health care frontliners will again bear the brunt of the surge of COVID-19 cases due to its Delta variant.

Authorities confirmed that there is already a local transmission of the Delta coronavirus in the Philippines.

“Kailangan na ng reinforcements ang ating mga frontliners (Our frontliners need reinforcements). We’ve spent 16 months fighting this pandemic, and the unseen enemy has been mutating into more dangerous strains,” Villanueva said in a statement.

The DOH, he said, could start with the 5,008 nurses who passed the board examinations held earlier this month. He said the number "can ease staffing shortages in public hospitals and other health facilities."

"Mukhang wala tayong timeout sa pandemyang ito, kaya dapat lamang na patuloy tayo maging alerto para hindi na sumunod sa nangyari sa mga bansang tinamaan ng Delta variant tulad ng India at Indonesia (There seems to be no timeout in this pandemic, that's why we should be continue to be alert so we won't end up like other countries affected by the Delta variant, like India and Indonesia)," the senator said.

Villanueva said another talent pool the government can draw from is the batch of 1,234 doctors who passed the licensure tests in May.

The government, he reiterated, should provide funds to the DOH so the agency "can go on a hiring binge." The staff complement of government health facilities should be “raised to war level", he added.

He said that this year, the DOH has a payroll budget of P61.14 billion, "a figure that does not cover personnel in hospitals and health centers run by local governments."

It also has a P16.7 billion budget for its health personnel deployment program, where it assigns doctors, nurses, midwives and other health workers to underserved localities, he also noted.

To boost the morale of frontliners, “we have to make sure they are paid what is due them on time and in full,” Villanueva pointed out.

“Siguruhin po natin na kung sino man ang nagnanais maglingkod sa gobyerno bilang public health frontliners, ibigay po natin sa kanila ang nararapat sa kanilang mga sakripisyo (We must make sure that whoever want to serve in the government as public health frontliners, we will give them what's due for their sacrifices)," he added.