Ease deployment cap for nurses – DMW

MANILA, Philippines — With the high global demand for Filipino nurses seen to continue, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) wants to ease the current deployment cap for health care workers (HCWs) in the coming year.

Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople reported that the Department of Health (DOH) has created a technical working group to discuss the deployment cap.

“In DMW, it should be eased. Not totally eliminated but rationalized,” Ople said in a television interview Monday.

“There can’t be a deployment cap forever without any reforms taking place here in our country because it’s their profession,” Ople explained.

Ople doesn’t see the demand for Filipino HCWs, especially nurses abroad, weakening even with an economic crisis.

“It will continue to be a profession that is highly valued and highly compensated overseas. Bullet-proof sila whatever happens with the economy,” she pointed out.

Thus, Ople said, the government is exerting efforts to enable the country to fill in the demand for HCWs not only in the country but also abroad.

Ople said she has suggested to the DOH the putting up of a scholarship fund with support coming from foreign countries hiring Filipino nurses.

Ople said the DMW will partner with the DOH in identifying the scholars from provinces.

The government initially set a 5,000 cap, which was eventually increased to 7,500.