The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) will propose a medical scholarship program that would be partially funded by countries that are sourcing their health care workers from the Philippines next week.

DMW Secretary Maria Susana “Toots” Ople disclosed this after senators inquired about the agency’s response regarding the Department of Health’s (DOH) concern they were not consulted regarding the deployment of health care workers.

Sen. Joel Villanueva pointed out the DOH is facing a shortage of 106,000 nurses in the country’s facilities and hospitals.

Ople said that she, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire and Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma is already discussing the “way forward” in rationalizing the global demand for the country’s health workforce.

“In fact, on Monday , we will hold the very first inter-agency meeting convened by the DOH, the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), DMW and I think CHED (Commission on Higher Education) has been invited to this meeting,” Ople said during the Senate subcommittee on finance’s hearing on the proposed P15.2-billion budget for 2023 of the DMW on Wednesday, October 5.

“Ang proposal po namin dito sa DMW, and this will be discussed extensively on Monday, is for us to work together on an inter-agency level on a sustainability program. Kasi hindi po talaga maiiwasan sir, na aalis at aalis din sila eh (Because we can’t really prevent them from leaving, they will still leave),” Ople explained.

“And I think it’s also unjust to make them stay here. Dahil (Because) they’ve been waiting for the circumstances to change in the domestic workforce,” she pointed out.

In line with this, Ople said the DMW will propose that this inter-agency task force come up with a pool of scholars who would be included to be part of a medical scholarship program.

“We have proposed that we can come up with a pool of schoalrs. We will ask, during our bilateral talks with other countries, for them to contribute to a scholarship fund for med-techs, all kinds of health workers,” she said.

She said the fund can be administred by the DOH, and the program be patterned after the late health secretary Juan Flavier’s “Doctors to the Barrios.”

“Pwede rin po ‘Doctors and Nurses from the Barrios’, given this scholarship fund,” she said.

“But sabi ko nga rin po, we also need to look at the conditions here, kasi it’s very clear yung attractiveness nung conditions elsewhere. It’s really here that we need to address the problem,” she stressed.