Herbosa to seek more benefits for health workers

MANILA, Philippines — To address the shortage of health care workers (HCWs) in the country due to migration, newly appointed Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said he will speak with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) regarding possible additional benefits for them.

“I will talk to the DBM secretary and find out what can be done so that we can provide our health care workers additional benefits,” Herbosa said at the Laging Handa public briefing yesterday.

“If it is not possible to increase their salary, at least we can provide them extra benefits to encourage them not to leave and work in other countries,” he added.

At the same time, the top health official said that they are looking at making the salary of nurses in government health facilities equivalent to what is being earned by the nurses in the private sector.

“I will also meet with some of the legislators and discuss with them possible measures to make the salary of nurses both in public and private sector equitable,” said Herbosa.

“What we want is to hire additional HCWs given that there are those seeking jobs abroad and we cannot prevent them from doing that,” he added.

Herbosa also said that he is considering hiring graduates of a four-year medical course even though they are not board passers yet.

“They can be hired in government even without their license and classify them under the board eligible category wherein they will be given three to five years to pass the board exam,” the Department of Health chief said.

In a separate televised interview, Herbosa said he is willing to employ unlicensed nursing graduates if they have diplomas from accredited nursing schools. – Evelyn Macairan