IATF recommends lifting of health worker deployment ban

MANILA, Philippines — The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has recommended the lifting of the deployment ban on healthcare workers amid the COVID pandemic.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III yesterday said the IATF passed a resolution allowing some nurses and other medical professionals to leave the country for overseas employment.

However, he said the resolution is pending approval of President Duterte, who is expected to make his decision known next week.

“The resolution contains provision before lifting the suspension. There is a cap, meaning we can only deploy at most 5,000 nurses or medical workers every year,” he added.

Early on, the government had imposed a deployment ban on certain frontliners to prevent the depletion of manpower in local hospitals.

The travel restriction was eased when the cut-off for the ban was moved from March 8 to Aug. 31.

Allowed to leave were those who already had “perfected contracts” with their employers.

Bello noted that only around 600 frontliners have left.

He assured workers that once Duterte approves the resolution, his department would facilitate the processing of the papers of those who want to leave the country to work abroad.