The Department of Health on Friday appealed for patience from health workers demanding their hazard pay and other receivables amid the COVID-19 pandemic, insisting the agency is doing its best to provide their benefits.
“Let's all think about the patients who need our services," Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire said in a briefing. “We are here to support you. Just give us some time to complete all of this.”
Medical frontliners at the Tondo Medical Center and the National Center for Mental Health staged protests Friday, demanding the immediate resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III for failing to release their Special Risk Allowance (SRA) and other benefits on time.
The workers also pressed the DOH and the Duterte administration to immediately provide their COVID-19-related benefits such as meal, accommodation, and transportation allowances, and active hazard duty pay.
Private hospitals also chimed in, complaining about the involvement of local government units (LGUs) in the release of SRAs to frontline health workers, claiming that this was a cause of delays.
Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPi) president Dr. Jose Rene De Grano, in an interview on Unang Balita, said the LGUs' processes are causing delay in the release of funds to hospitals.
“The SRAs pass through LGUs where they undergo bureaucratic processes. The release then gets delayed,” said De Grano.
The SRA funds should be given directly to private hospitals, De Grano said.
In a separate interview on Unang Balita earlier in the day, Dr. Ted Herbosa, an adviser to the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, said DOH regional offices can now release the SRA to hospitals.
The department also said Friday it was seeking additional funding from the Department of Budget and Management to provide the COVID-19 SRA to over 17,000 more health workers.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said this is aside from the P311 million released for the SRA of more than 20,000 health workers earlier this week.
“We have a new request to the DBM for around 17,670 additional healthcare workers who have submitted their requirements,” said Vergeire in Filipino at a forum.
The DOH and DBM are in talks to extend the contracts of health workers hired through the emergency hiring program, Vergeire said.
“We are talking to the DBM to get additional funds so we can extend the employees we hired until the end of this year. We are still awaiting the response of the DBM to that,” she said.
Robert Mendoza, president of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW), said Friday's rallies are part of the AHW unions series of actions until Aug. 31, 2021 — the deadline they set for DOH to release their hard-earned COVID-19 benefits as provided by law.
"This protest action is part of a series of actions by health workers in various public and private hospitals to call for the DOH to provide all the benefits stipulated in the Bayanihan law that have not been provided to them, which are long overdue," Mendoza said.
The protesting workers snaked through the hospital premises while launching into a noise barrage to express their anger and resentment over what they saw as the government’s lack of concern and gross negligence for their well-being.
They also demanded that Duque step down as Health secretary.
President Duterte ordered the DOH and the DBM to pay health workers’ benefits within 10 days from Aug. 21. The DBM said it had released the P311 million for the SRA on Thursday.
But Ernesto Bulanadi, president of the Tondo Medical Center Employees Association-Alliance of Health Workers, said they are so disappointed over the meager budget for health workers’ risk allowance.
He said in the DOH-retained hospitals alone, there are 67,000 health workers. "Therefore, that funding for SRA is insufficient,” he said.
The union also denounced the provision in the Bayanihan law that limits SRA benefits only to health workers who directly deal with COVID-19 patients.
Moreover, the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act provides other benefits such as meal, accommodation and transportation allowance, active hazard duty pay, and compensation for health workers who got sick with COVID-19.
He said Tondo Medical Center, a DOH hospital, received only 30 percent of the funds intended for the meals, accommodation and transportation (MAT) allowance of its health workers covering the period of September to December 2020, as the remaining 70 percent or P14 million of the funds was withheld by the DOH.
These delayed benefits must all be paid immediately, the union said.
The AHW earlier said they would push through with a mass protest in September, citing the DOH’s failure to provide their allowances for meals, accommodation, and transportation, and active hazard duty pay.
“They are not paying us for everything, that’s why health workers are disappointed. Why only SRA? You owe us so much," Mendoza said.
The group initially gave the government an Aug. 27 deadline to release their long delayed benefits.
In other developments:
* Senator Grace Poe said medical frontliners saddled by the COVID-19 workload must receive all benefits and pay due them under the law. “Let us not push them to… protest or resign,” she said. She also called for a more reasonable interpretation of the law so as not to restrict the SRA to those directly dealing with COVID-19 patients.
* Herbosa said the number of daily COVID-19 vaccinations has been decreasing because of limited manpower. “Previously, we could achieve 700,000 injections per day. It decreased to 300,000. Now, it has stabilized to around 400,00,” Herbosa said. Because of this, the government is encouraging medical students to volunteer in vaccination centers.