CAGAYAN de Oro Second District Representative Rufus Rodriguez urged the labor department to temporarily stop the deployment of Filipino nurses abroad while the country is fighting the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Rodriguez made the statement after learning from a news report few days back that Germany was allegedly sending a plane to Manila to ferry "at least 75" intensive care unit (ICU) nurses to care for German patients infected with Covid-19.
"Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III should suspend the sending of nurses abroad. We need our healthcare personnel here at this time of public health emergency to attend to sick Filpinos, and not to foreigners," Rodriguez said.
"We need those nurses bound for Germany and other jobs overseas to augment our dwindling public health workforce," Rodriguez said.
The Kagay-anon lawmaker said the country's healthcare system is already overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases and several public and private hospitals are complaining of lack of personnel.
Rodriguez noted that due to its depleted manpower, the Department of Health is looking for volunteer doctors and nurses.
But he urged the DOH to refrain from "asking for volunteer doctors and nurses but to instead hire them and pay them professionally with competitive rates."
"They should be properly compensated. They are our modern-day heroes," Rodriguez said.
He added hundreds of doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel have already been sidelined by Covid-19 as they are on quarantine due to exposure to the virus.
Rodriguez said the deployment of healthcare workers abroad could resume after the country has successfully overcame the disease.