President Rodrigo has Duterte ordered Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to prioritize the compensation and other benefits of healthcare workers battling the coronavirus since it stormed into the country in March last year.
"By the way, just put these front-liners first. If there's enough money, then pay them," Duterte said during his pre-recorded Talk to the People on Monday night.
Some groups of medical professionals particularly from private hospitals have been complaining about the non-release of their special risk allowance (SRA) and the removal of their other benefits.
Duterte earlier signed Administrative SRA of up to P5,000 per month to private and public health workers with direct contact with COVID-19 patients.
Duterte signed the AO “to recognize the heroic and invaluable contribution of our health workers throughout the country, who bravely and unselfishly risk their lives and health by being at the forefront of national efforts to respond to the pandemic.”
The government's Bayanihan 2 budget has allocated at least P15 billion for the health workers’ SRA and hazard pay.
Last year, Duterte also signed AO 36 granting health workers directly attending to Covid-19 patients with risk allowance, covering Sept. 15 to Dec. 19, 2020.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health admitted on Tuesday that not all healthcare workers received their special risk allowance due to inadvertent "miscalculations" among those attending to COVID-19 patients.
Speaking to CNN Philippines' The Source, Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega said 359,501 healthcare workers already benefited from about ₱8 billion that they released for the SRA in the period of January to June 2021. However, they are still collating data on the remaining workers who were not yet given their due.
"There are inadvertently miscalculations in terms of the SRA that should be given to the healthcare workers. I think we have asked the different institutions through the regional offices to make sure that the HR of the different institutions will give them at least a number of healthcare workers that (have) not been provided," Vega admitted.
Vega said of over 350,000 healthcare workers who received their allowance, 54,000 beneficiaries were from private hospitals.
Vega said that while he was not offering any excuses for such lapses, he asked for understanding from healthcare workers, noting that "it's very hard for us to validate in the central office or certify health care workers directly working in contact with COVID."
In related developments, a group of health workers said some of the benefits under the Bayanihan 2 law for health workers were slashed by as much as 70 percent to fund the country’s vaccination drive.
Alliance of Health Workers National President Robert Mendoza said the meal, accommodation, and transportation allowance for health workers was taken back from them merely three days after the funds were given to some hospitals.
The Bayanihan 2 expired with billions in funds still unused on June 30.
Mendoza said he felt frustrated by the fact that they need to beg for the benefits already provided to them by the law.
Mendoza said he was shocked by the Commission on Audit report on the DOH’s alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 funds.
Mendoza added: “Our group is not encouraging mass resignation, because we have an obligation, we have sworn duties to fulfill. Although, the public will also suffer if health workers are not taken care of. (See full story online at manilastandard.net)
Without health workers, our healthcare system will break down.”
Meanwhile, the Philippine Nurses Association warned there was a possibility that the Philippines’ healthcare system might collapse if the government would not give its medical frontliners their due benefits.
Aside from nurses in the private sector, contractual health workers and some medical personnel in the public sector have yet to receive their special risk allowance, active hazard duty pay, and transportation and accommodation allowance, said PNA president Maristela Abenojar.
Some 30,000 nurses work in the private sector while there are 13,000 contractual nurses nationwide, she said.
The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines has estimated 40 percent of private hospital nurses resigned last year, and more followed after new waves of infections this year.
Public hospitals are facing similar challenges.
"We're afraid our health care system will collapse if this will not be addressed immediately because for nurses for instance we have 72 percent of the total labor force," one official said.
An organization composed of nurses nationwide on Tuesday criticized the alleged "unequal" distribution of their special risk allowance because only those with direct contact to COVID-19 patients were eligible to receive it.
Melbert Reyes, Philippine Nurses Association national president, said some nurses have yet to receive their SRA this year. UST Hospital union president Donnel John Siason earlier said health workers were considering a strike or a "medical lockdown" due to their low salaries and lack of benefits.
Abenojar cited 150 UST Hospital health workers who have contracted COVID-19, some several times, but have yet to receive their compensation.
"There is this growing frustration among our ranks that they feel they're not really appreciated despite the huge sacrifices they had, despite a lot of them getting ill of COVID, and some of us are also dying yet we were not given due recognition in terms of our contribution," she said.
The Senate can pass "within a day" a resolution extending the health department's authority to release lapsed Bayanihan 2 funds if President Rodrigo Duterte orders it to do so, said Senator Miguel Zubiri.
He also emphasized that the health ministry was accountable for the release of these allowances even after supposedly downloading the money to local government units.
"Somebody has to be an implementer for that. It cannot stop at passing the blame after it's released to the regional office, wash hands and you're on your own,” Zubiri said.
He said he was willing to give Health Secretary Francisco Duque III the benefit of the doubt that DOH regional directors might have lied to him, but still, officials must be held responsible for the failure to release the funds to health workers.
The Health Department is in hot water over deficiencies in the management of its ₱67 billion pandemic response funds. State auditors also called out the agency for not spending over ₱59 billion from its 2020 budget.
Meanwhile, Malacañang expressed hope that fresh nursing graduates could be called upon to serve the country following threats made by healthcare workers to resign over the government’s failure to give benefits due to them.
In a Palace press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque acknowledged the country’s need for more healthcare workers as COVID-19 infections continue to rise to over 1.57 million.
Roque, however, said he was optimistic about the “surplus” in nursing graduates produced by the country's universities every year.