On Healthcare Workers’ Day, Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday pressed Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to explain the delay in hazard pay for healthcare workers and the continuously deteriorating work environment in hospitals more than a year into the pandemic.
Hontiveros backed health workers union groups, saying that more than ‘words of gratitude’, the government should improve the work conditions of health workers.
She said this should come in the form of periodic COVID-19 testing, immune boosters, free PPEs, and continuous hiring of health workers.
Hontiveros said P13.5 billion was already extended under Bayanihan 2 to address the needs of health workers, but until now the Health Secretary cannot explain why there no good roll-out in hospitals.
“All year long, health workers have made desperate calls for better pay and genuine support. The Health Secretary should stop giving them the cold shoulder and should explain why he fails to do his job when health workers wholeheartedly do theirs with their lives on the line,” she added.
Hontiveros said the overwhelmed hospitals are “hell on earth” for health workers who continue to remain burnt out by the lack of action of the Department of Health (DOH) to provide substantial aid to them.
“Health workers deserve safe and decent working conditions. Instead of Sec. Duque insisting that all the needs are being met, perhaps he should listen to what the health workers in the hospitals have to say.
In the middle of a health crisis, an out of touch Health Secretary is the last thing we need,” she remarked.
Hontiveros, who also discovered the P1 billion government overspent on foreign-made PPEs in 2020, lamented the wasted funds that she says the country ‘badly’ needs now.
“Every time we purchase anything overpriced, we deduct funds from medicine, temporary treatment facilities, and PPEs which could have gone to saving another life,” she said.
“Your hard work gives us hope. To the Health Secretary, acknowledge that we are not doing enough for health workers and give them the dignity of wages and benefits that can support them and theirfamilies’ lives in the middle of a health and economic crisis,” she added.