BHW party-list Rep. Angelica Natasha Co on Sunday urged the Department of Health to speed up the release of the special risk allowances to 191,186 eligible local government unit-hired health workers.
She called on the House of Representatives leadership “to move her House Bill 10285 forward soon.”
Co said HB 10285 is still pending at committee, while the Senate approved its counterpart consolidated bill last Sept. 29.
“If a law correcting the loophole in the Magna Carta of Health Workers is not plugged in the coming months, some 218,698 barangay health workers nationwide will continue to be treated as ‘second-class’ health-care workers (HCWs) and miss out on compensation and benefits other HCWs receive,” she noted.
Only P66 million representing 42 percent of the special risk allowances due to barangay health workers had been released, she said, citing the DOH.
One out of every four barangays does not have barangay health workers, according to Co.