The country’s healthcare system is experiencing a “brain drain” in its medical professionals, a health expert warned on Friday, Sept. 2, adding that it may eventually lead to a greater conflict if not addressed.
Brain drain refers to the migration of health personnel in search for better standard of living in different places across the globe.
“Ang nangyayari ngayon ay nag nagkakaroon tayo ng brain drain sa health sector dahil ang mga nurses natin, medtech, physical therapists ay nag a-abroad. Kailangan natin ng malaking compensation sa kanila dahil later on tayo ang mahihirapan at mauubusan ng healthcare workers (What’s happening now is that we are experiencing brain drain in the health sector because our nurses, medtech, physical therapists are going abroad. We need bigger compensation for them because later on we may have difficulties and we will run out of healthcare workers),” said Vice President of the Philippine Federation of Professional Associations Dr. Benito Atienza in a “Laging Handa” public briefing.
Health benefits
Among the key factors that drive Filipino nurses to migrate are insufficient salary, frustrations on Covid-19 benefits, non recognition, and unfavorable work conditions.
Earlier, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) supported the House Bill 3648 also known as the proposed Nursing Bill to repeal Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, embracing its call for the national government to increase the entry salary of Filipino nurses to 50,000 and to implement a “reasonable workload” through safe nurse patient ratio of 1:6 in general wards.
“Katulad ng binigay nating benepisyo noong Bayanihan 1 and 2, ang iba ay hindi pa rin nakaka receive kasi marami processes. sa mga hindi pa nakaka receive ay yung mga nasa private sector na mga doktor at nurses kaya kailangan pang pag ibayuhin ang ating kampanya na meron na po ‘yan at sana mapabilis (Just like the benefits we gave during Bayanihan 1 and 2, others are still unable to receive benefits because there are so many processes. Most of those who have yet to receive benefits are those in private sectors — doctors and nurses alike – so we still need to boost our campaign and hopefully speed it up),” said Atienza.
Preventing the mass departure of PH medical frontliners
Like the national labor association of public and private nurses, Atienza believes that treating the medical frontliners better may prevent the mass departure of Filipino health workers which will eventually lead to the betterment of the Philippine healthcare system.
“Dapat ang health sector talaga ang binibigyan ng malaking prayoridad ng gobyerno lalo na ngayon. Dapat po ngayon ay pag ibayuhin pa ang Magna Carta for Health Workers at repasuhin po ito ng Senado at Kongreso para mabigyang proteksyon pa (The health sector should be really prioritized by the government especially now. The Magna Carta for Health Workers should now be renewed and reviewed by the Senate and Congress in order to protect the health workers more),” he added.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos on Thursday, Sept. 1 during the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) admitted that the P25.82 billion worth of benefits disbursed to medical frontliners, especially nurses, is insufficient.
The P25.82 worth of benefits as of Aug. 19, according to Marcos, include hazard duty pay, Covid-19 sickness and death compensation, meals, accomodation, transportation allowances, life insurance, special risk allowance, and the One Covid-19 allowance.