THE need to have physicians and nurses to augment the medical staff in Cebu City’s hospitals should not be addressed by the Department of Health (DOH) alone.
This was the reaction of the Coalition for People’s Right to Health-Cebu Chapter to the recent statement of Cebu City 2nd District Representative Rodrigo Abellanosa calling on the DOH to address the shortage of health workers, ambulances, and medical supplies in the city.
In a statement, the CPRH said the DOH should have consultations with physicians and nurses’ societies and hospital administrators in Cebu City to thresh out how the present problem of hospitals being overwhelmed with patients and shortage of health workers can be more effectively addressed.
Dialogues of the DOH with the private health sector will pave way to coming up with a common understanding of the actual situation why patients are turned down for admission, the current number of beds for Covid patients, the nurse and doctor ratio to the patients, the facilities available, the extent of the problems, and the needs of the private and public hospitals.
The dialogues can then come up with concrete and mutually agreed solutions to address the problems.
The group cited how the order of the DOH to deploy members of the Doctors to the Barrios (DTTB) from Western Visayas and Central Visayas to Cebu City private hospitals and making it voluntary was rescinded following consultations with the doctors and health groups who had opposed the said order.
The group, through its spokesperson Irish Grace Ramirez, said that the rescindment of the DOH order on the deployment of the DTTB doctors brings to the fore the need for consultations with involved stakeholders before orders are issued. It stresses participation of the private sector in DOH policies.
With the rescindment of the DOH order, the CPRH expressed relief that the DTTB, as municipal health officers and rural health physicians in several municipalities, can continue to provide much needed primary health care services in their depressed and marginalized communities.
“They are a significant and essential human resource much needed by the people and pulling them out of their communities to work in private hospi
tals in Cebu City is simply inappropriate and unacceptable,” Ramirez said.
The statement also mentioned that the Talisay City District Hospital, which accepts Covid patients, being a national government hospital, is hiring nurses, radiologic technologists, respiratory therapists, and nursing attendants. Nurse II has a basic salary of P32,053 with a premium of 20 percent of the basic salary, while a Nursing Attendant II gets a basic salary of P15,524 with premium of 20 percent of the basic salary. Both positions get a hazard pay of P500 a day, P1,000 a month communication and transportation allowance, hospitalization benefits under PhilHealth and other benefits.
“The problem is are there applicants,” Filipino Nurses United Cebu Coordinator Jennifer Amaro, RN, said.
She said that members of the FNU, which is a member organization of CPRH, are working more than eight hours per day, that government nurses have not received the hazard pay due them, and they suffer from discrimination in their boarding houses. She also said that some private hospitals do not pay their nurses hazard pay.
Dr. Peter Mancao, the public relations officer of the Cebu Medical Society, said last June 25 that nurses are thinking of resigning due to fear of getting the virus. He called for ensuring that all health workers are providing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).
The CPRH reiterated its call for strengthened public health system and a stronger support and protection of our health care professionals, to hire additional doctors and nurses to be in the frontlines, and provide them with adequate salaries, hazard pay, and other benefits.
If they get sick also in line of duty, their hospitalization expenses should be covered by their employers, since the Philhealth benefits are insufficient. The frontliners should also be provided with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPEs) always, it said. (PR)