"There will be a time when the exodus will level off. For example, some western countries have slowed down in recruitment. But there will still be continuing recruitment," DOH Assistant Secretary Dr. Mario Villaverde said in an interview during a health policy symposium at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati City yesterday.
Villaverde said that while the dollar remittances of these migrant workers help boost the country’s economy, the exodus is also taking its toll on the local health care system.
It is estimated that over the last 10 years, some 9,000 Filipino nurses left the Philippines to work in hospitals overseas, mostly in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The DOH is hoping that the "brain drain" caused by the exodus can turn into "brain gain" by coming up with programs that will entice those who migrated to come home and serve the Filipino people using what they learned abroad.
Villaverde added that the master plan also touches on the "mal-distribution" of health care professionals in the Philippines.
In early 1990s, the DOH already observed that most countryside areas lack doctors and nurses, prompting the department to implement its "Doctors to the Barrio" program. This involves the deployment of physicians to municipalities without doctors across the country.
The agency is formulating strategies to make working in the countryside attractive to doctors.
To address the two concerns, the DOH is hoping it can work out increases in salary and improvement of working conditions for health care professionals in the Philippines.
The DOH believes that if legislation like the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers will be implemented, such legislation will significantly improve working conditions for health care professionals.
"Basically, these are the issues tackled in the plan. We are pushing that the salary scale and benefits of our health professionals will be competitive (with those abroad)," Villaverde said.