Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, reviewing the government’s fight and response against the killer coronavirus, said a count was in order on bed facilities and others needed for those infected.
“One year and one million cases after the country’s first recorded COVID-19 case, a count on the number of ICU beds, ventilators and critical care equipment in government hospitals is in order, Recto said in a statement.
“In any war, we should always look at the logistics. For the frontlines to keep on fighting, the supply lines must keep on running,” he said.
As the nation grapples with another surge which saw cases breach the one million-mark, Recto said the Senate should begin its “mandatory review” of the Department of Health spending to find out if funds meant “for ventilators, ICU equipment were indeed utilized.”
Recto made the call following press reports that the DOH bungled the acquisition of 200 ICU beds offered by an Austrian company late last year, an allegation the DOH has strongly denied.
Still entitled
Health workers who undergo mandatory quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure are still entitled to their benefits, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.
“Health workers who are to undergo quarantine because of being exposed should still receive their benefits” under a joint circular of the DOH and the Department of Budget and Management, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
Malacañang has also said that no deductions should be made to the hazard pay of health workers.
Some groups said they received reports that health workers’ hazard pay was cut down drastically due to the mandatory quarantine period.
A special risk allowance (SRA) is mandated for health workers “directly catering to or in contact with COVID-19 patients for every month that they are serving during the state of national emergency” under the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act.
This is on top of the active-duty hazard pay (ADHP) provided under Bayanihan 2 and the hazard pay under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.
Robert Mendoza, national president of the Alliance of Health Workers, reiterated calls for the hazard pay to be given in full.
‘Retroactive payment’
Philippine Orthopedic Center Employees Union president Sean Velchez said the statements of the DOH and the Palace should translate to “retroactive payment” of the ADHP, SRA, and hazard pay provided by the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.
He also urged the government to remove and amend “the selective and stringent conditions in giving the SRA and ADHP… in order for all health workers to receive the above-mentioned benefits.”
“At the moment, SRA is only given to those with ‘direct exposure to COVID patients’ without considering that the virus is airborne and or highly contagious regardless of unit assignment in a health facility with COVID-positive patients,” Velchez stressed.
Applicants lacking
It has been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic started, but the government is still facing challenges in hiring enough health workers to handle the facilities.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Wednesday that, at the start of the pandemic, the DOH already estimated that it would need 10,568 additional health workers to “fill up the gaps in our hospitals and other COVID facilities.”
However, the DOH has only been able to hire 8,570 health workers, she said.
The funding was already approved by the Department of Budget and Management.
While the government increased the bed capacity of hospitals through modular structures or conversions of wards, the medical sector already warned that additional beds still required additional manpower.
Just this week, the Philippines became the 26th country to log a total of 1 million COVID-19 cases.
Healthcare system
Senator Christopher Go emphasized Wednesday the importance of keeping the healthcare system afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic amid talks of new quarantine status for the National Capital Region Plus bubble for the month of May.
The area is currently under modified enhanced community quarantine until April 30.
He assured the public that whatever the government and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases decide on, it would be based on a thorough and rigorous assessment of the country’s pandemic situation.
The chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography also urged the government to make sure that no Filipino will go hungry throughout the community quarantine.
Meanwhile, Senator Joel Villanueva stressed to include perks for healthcare frontliners in government’s Labor Day package of benefits for workers.
“Given today’s circumstances, I think that should be a major plank of the traditional May 1 announcement by Malacanang,” said Villanueva, chair of the Senate labor committee, in a statement.
Villanueva was referring to the customary practice of the government to unveil a bundle of pro-labor programs and projects on the holiday honoring workers.
He justified his call by citing the “obvious fact that healthcare workers are essential to our country’s survival.”
“Our situation today places an enormous risk on our healthcare workers. How can it not be when if you’re in a hospital comforting a COVID-19 patient, the air around can make you ill or cause your death?” Villanueva noted.
The senator is urging the government, particularly the labor and health departments, to come up “with a package of new and expanded benefits for public health workers for the President to announce on Labor Day.”
For their pandemic work, health workers in the public sector received a Special Risk Allowance of P5,000 as authorized by the Bayanihan I Law and Administrative Order No. 36.
Villanueva said compensation of health workers, with priority given to those performing “actual frontline duty,” must be increased “including what our frontline Barangay Health Workers are getting.
He said his proposal was not limited to those in the public employ, but also covers health workers in the country’s 932 private hospitals and 315 private infirmaries.
“The Labor Day package must cover private health workers. We call on the government to provide subsidies to frontliners in private health institutions. Nothing in the law prohibits the grant of such,” he surmised.