A nurses’ group urges the Department of Health (DOH) to be aggressive in recruiting nurses in the country.
According to Melvin Miranda, president of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), the recruitment of Filipino nurses by foreign countries is alarming.
He said the Philippines needed 617,000 nurses, but only 125,000 currently are working in the country.
He said, foreigners are coming to the Philippines entice local nurses to go abroad.
According to Miranda, due to aggressive recruitment and offers from other countries, many Filipino nurses are resigning to go abroad.
He said that the DOH does not have a retention plan, so the Philippines lacks a nursing workforce, at the same time as there is an implementation of the Universal Healthcare Act.
He said that there is also a lack of teachers teaching in nursing schools in the Philippines.
He said that the DOH must fix the plantilla positions of nurses.
Also among the things that can be arranged is the better provision of health emergency allowance to nurses, saying that high pay is said to increase the motivation of nurses to go to other countries that offer better salaries.
Recently the DOH said the country needs 350,000 nurses aside from the ones working in the Philippines. With Willie Casas