Cayetano, who currently chairs the Senate committee on health and demography, said the country's healthcare professional from seeking greener pastures cannot be prevented.
"They also need to earn a living," Cayetano said.
Cayetano believes that pushing the medical tourism would be beneficial for the country's healthcare professionals.
She said there is room for medical tourism.
Instead of looking at the proposed medical tourism as something that would adversely affect the medical attention given to the less privileged, Cayetano sees such proposition as a win-win solution.
"With medical tourism, it can help subsidize for the indigent patients," Cayetano said.
Improving the passing rate of the Nursing Licensure Exam, as well as other licensure exams for healthcare professionals, Cayetano said, is one way of buffering the exodus of the healthcare professionals.
"Not that we can stop the demand from outside, but with more people passing the licensure exams, then there can be more who would opt to stay in the country and not leave for abroad," Cayetano said.
She also hailed the putting up of lactation centers for breastfeeding mothers in two city malls.
Cayetano, who sponsored the Expanded Breastfeeding and Promotion Act (SBN 2490), is an advocate of breastfeeding. Senator Juan Flavier authored the original bill, the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2006.
The bill would mandate installing lactation stations in public places such as malls, terminals, airports, etc.
It would also give provisions for new mothers to have some privacy to feed their babies.
"Studies show that one major reason mothers stop breastfeeding is because mubalik na sila sa trabaho (they go back to work)," she said.
Although dismayed that the bill was not passed in the Lower House, she still encourages city officials to implement the bill. She added installing a lactation station does not entail much. A chair, a table and a place to wash are all that are needed to accommodate a breastfeeding mother.
Lactation stations have already been installed at SM City Mall and NCCC Mall of Davao. (With Cherry Marie E. Delfin, AdDU Intern)
