After years of waiting, nurses working in government hospitals finally get their promised pay hike after the Department of Budget and Management issued a circular that implements Section 32 of Republic Act 9173, or the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, which mandates a minimum monthly base pay of P32,053 to P34,801.
In an interview on The Chiefs on One News on Friday, Filipino Nurses United (FNU) Secretary-General Jocelyn Andamo disclosed to the program’s hosts (Ed Lingao, Luchi Cruz-Valdes and Roby Alampay) the problems faced by government nurses, especially during this pandemic.
Andamo said the government should address the shortage of life-saving personal protective equipment (PPEs) for nurses. We have a high number of infections among our health-care workers and nurses are the most affected, she said.
Andamo noted that 40 of San Lazaro Hospital’s personnel tested positive for the virus, with another 20 infections reported thereafter, for a total of 60 in July alone.
Hospitals at times overlook the safety of their health-care workers as they ration PPEs. Andamo said nurses should have one PPE for every infected patient, but they need to use the same set of PPEs for multiple patients because of limited allocation. As a result, she said many nurses forego restroom and meal breaks just to preserve the same set of PPEs.
The FNU also called for enough rest periods for nurses and other health-care workers to prevent fatigue and burnout. Different hospitals have different rules but generally nurses are not getting enough rest, Andamo said, noting the 14-day home-quarantine rule set by the Department of Health (DOH) after working 14 consecutive days.
She also lamented that contractual nurses are not getting hazard pay even if they work the same number of hours, make the same sacrifices and are exposed to Covid-19 just the same as regular nurses.
Nurses should be given downtime not just to help reduce risks of exposure but to prevent physical and emotional fatigue. Unfortunately, most nurses get no downtime at all because there are not enough nurses in hospitals, Andamo said.
This is why FNU has appealed to the DOH to push through with its mass hiring of nurses—not just nursing “volunteers” but nurses with regular items in hospitals, who will be fairly compensated and provided benefits.
There is no reason to have nursing shortages in a country like ours, which has been deploying nurses to all corners of the world for decades. Andamo said there are about 200,000 unemployed nurses in the country, and only about 90,000 nurses are employed locally, with about 60,000 of them working in government hospitals.
She called the government’s temporary ban on the deployment of nurses abroad “irrational and unjust.” The country has enough nurses, Andamo said. The problem is not the supply of nurses but the working conditions in the country.
We agree. The government should not prevent nurses from seeking better opportunities in other countries. It should work instead to improve their pay and benefits and work conditions here so they would see no need to work elsewhere. Current conditions, Andamo said, are far from ideal and the pandemic has only made them harsher.
Andamo said many nurses have to spend for their own Covid-19 swab testing, even if this should be free, mandatory and routine for all health-care workers who are constantly exposed to infected patients.
She said many nurses who got infected were left to fend for themselves, adding that 20 nurses infected in San Lazaro cannot even get medical care in the hospital but are staying in a tent outside.
She also said many nurses who got infected were not given the P100,000 cash aid promised by the Bayanihan Act because the rules say only those with severe infection would be compensated, hence those with moderate and mild infections got no support.
Giving nurses a little raise in their basic salaries isn’t enough to improve their plight. There are other issues and concerns that the government must address to create a positive work environment for them. If nurses are not adequately protected, if they are constantly under pressure and in danger of suffering from burnout and getting infected—all these can lead to poor hospital services and patient care, which will adversely affect the country’s health-care services.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano