THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the deployment cap for health-care workers (HCW) next year may be increased to 10,500 depending on the outcome of nursing board examinations this month.
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay said this was the proposal of the Mission Critical Skills Technical Working Group (MCS-TWG), when it met last Tuesday to discuss the deployment cap for HCWs.
The MCS-TWG is willing to recommend to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to increase the current 6,500 deployment cap by another 4,000 slots if 12,000 additional nurses become licensed this year.
“So that will increase the deployment cap next to 10,500,” Tutay said.
During the nursing board examination held in July, she said less than 5,000 board passers registered to become a licensed nurse.
Tutay said in the next nursing board examination scheduled on November 21 and 22, 2021, at least 8,000 of the 12,300 registered examinees need to pass the test and become licensed nurses so the government could reach its 12,000 target new nurses this year.
If that target will not be met, she said they may lower the increase in the deployment cap, but she assured it will not go below 5,000 slots.