MANILA, Philippines — To address the continuing exodus of Filipino nurses, a lawmaker has proposed the granting of full scholarships to qualified students in exchange for staying in the country after graduation.
At the Senate Committee on Health and Demography's hearing Tuesday, Sen. Raffy Tulfo said that scholars could be required to serve in government hospitals for up to five years.
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Tulfo also asked representatives of the Department of Health to address reports of discrimination that Filipino nurses are facing in the workplace, including the selective grant of benefits such as hazard pay, saying he learned that only the nurses who were exposed to COVID-19 patients or were assigned to the COVID-19 wards were eligible for hazard pay.
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"We should be sensitive to the needs of our nurses. We need to take care of them and treat them right. We should be fair. It's important that we use common sense in addressing their needs," he said in mixed Filipino and English.
The international standard for nurse-to-patient ratio is at 1:4. The Department of Health has set this at 1:12 locally, but the current ratio in the Philippines is estimated at 1:20, which compromises nursing care and exhausts nurses.
Healthcare groups have said texhaustion, discrimination, and lower salaries are driving many Filipino nurses to other counties for the promise of a better life and better working conditions.
Wasted medicine
The senator also asked the DOH to submit records showing the list of individuals that were held accountable and are facing charges in court for poor distribution of medicines that are left expired and undistributed in the previous years.
Around P2 billion in medicine was wasted between 2013 and 2021 because they were expired and near expiration. The medicines were meant for impoverished citizens, including, among others, cancer patients and senior citizens.
"I really need to see that record that someone has been charged because of negligence at work that resulted in the waste of billions worth of medicine. Because the people need to know that we are serious about our jobs and we are serious about prosecuting the people charged for neglecting their duty," Tulfo also said.
"If we wait until the press release that someone has been charged and later on the people find out that the case filed by the government is also ignored, then we're just fooling ourselves."