The country's largest coronavirus disease (COVID-19) referral center is grappling with manpower shortage after 10 of its volunteer doctors resigned, its spokesperson said Thursday, Sept. 9.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Dr. Jonas del Rosario said the doctors' resignation "was a huge loss" to the hospital amid the rise of COVID-19 infections.
Del Rosario said the volunteer doctors, who were earning P50,000 a month, were from the Department of Health.
"Wala naman po kaming masabi dahil nagtrabaho sila sa PGH and their decision to leave ay personal na po yun. We honor that. Nung nag-resign malaking kawalan po sa amin yun (We have nothing to say because they worked at PGH and their decision to leave was personal. We honor that. When they resigned, it was a big loss for us)," he added.
"Maybe I can just hypothesize, maybe napagod na rin, maaring yung iba nagkakasakit, they probably look at the PGH, masyadong maraming trabaho (maybe they got tired, maybe others got sick, they probably looked at the PGH and thought, too much work), and they can probably be earning more if they just work outside,"
To deal with a manpower shortage, Del Rosario said they are asking health workers from other departments to help out in treating COVID-19 patients, however, it's still not enough.
"The director has a request that all departments should be sending some of their residents, all hands on deck, tulong-tulong na. That's what happening to augment and even that, kapos pa rin (we're still understaffed) because we have other non-COVID patients pa that we have to take care of," he added.