The base monthly pay of public nurses will get a 75 percent increase if this bill from Quezon City 4th district Rep. Marvin Rillo gets enacted.
Rillo, a rookie legislator in the 19th Congress, filed House Bill (HB) 5276, which seeks to amend the 20-year-old Philippine Nursing Law, or Republic Act (RA)No.9173.
He proposed in his measure that “the minimum base pay of nurses working in public health institutions shall not be lower than Salary Grade 21 prescribed under No.11466, or the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) of 2019".
Should the measure become a law, the base monthly pay of public nurses will be hiked from the current P36,619 to P63,997.
"We expect our measure help slow down the rapid migration of Filipino nurses to English-speaking overseas labor markets,” said Rillo, a vice chairperson of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education.
The World Health Organization (WHO), in its State of the World’s Nursing report, previously warned that without action, “there will be a shortfall of 4.6 million nurses worldwide by 2030".
In the Philippines, the WHO said the shortage of nurses is expected to be 249,843 by 2030, “unless greater investment is made now to retain them in the local health sector".
Rillo said HB No.5276 "will also encourage a greater number of high school graduates to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree in college".
The bill says that RA No.9173 fixed the floor base pay of public nurses at no less than Salary Grade 15.
Salary Grade 15 currently pays a minimum of P35,097 per month, which will go up to P36,619 on Jan. 1, 2023, once the fourth and last tranche of increases under the SSL kicks in.
Meanwhile, Salary Grade 21 currently pays a minimum of P62,449 per month, which will increase to P63,997 on Jan. 1, 2023 under the SSL.