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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Shortage of healthcare professionals in PH exacerbated by various factors, says expert

Shortage of healthcare professionals in PH exacerbated by various factors, says expert

Published Oct 3, 2022 04:00 pm

Why is there a shortage of healthcare professionals in the Philippines?

Earlier in September 2022, the Department of Health (DOH) disclosed that the country lacks at least 106,000 nurses in order to fill in the public and private facilities across the Philippines. This shortage was not only seen in nurses but also among midwives, dentists, and other healthcare professionals.

In a public briefing, Philippine Federation of Professional Associations Vice President Dr. Benito Atienza enumerated some of the reasons why the country recorded an insufficient number of healthcare professionals.

(Angel Garcia/Bloomberg)

“Maraming mga bansa ang nangangailangan ng nurses. Nagkaroon din tayo ng K-12, nagkaroon ng backlog kaya nagkaroon din ng kakulangan (Many countries need nurses. We also had K-12, that is the reason why there was a backlog that led to the shortage of nurses),” said Atienza.

Apart from the ongoing international recruitment of nurses with “lenient” process and competitive salaries, Atienza added that another factor that exacerbates the shortage is the insufficient number of nursing professors in the country.

“Isa pang dapat solusyunan ang kakulangan sa nursing teachers. Marami raw gustong mag nursing ngayon ngunit kulang sila sa professors dahil karamihan ay naga-abroad din (Another issue that must be addressed is the lack of nursing teachers. It is said that many people want to study nursing now, but institutions lack professors because most of the educators also go abroad),” he added.

This shortage in professors, according to Atienza, is one of the reasons why some schools cannot accept many students, stressing that they do not want to compromise the quality of education in the country.

Preventing the exodus of medical professionals

Reiterating that the exodus of healthcare professionals may pose a great threat to the Philippines, the expert said the problem should be addressed as early as possible.

His suggestion circled with the provision of a reliable scholarship to encourage the children and youth to pursue a career in the field of health and medicine.

“Dapat ganito ang ating process, hindi ‘yung kapag kulang na ang nurses tiyaka tayo gagawa ng solusyon (We should be doing this process, not when we are lacking in nurses, only then, we will suddenly work on a solution),” Atienza furthered.

Meanwhile, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) previously 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.

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