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Health workers' exodus alarming

Health workers' exodus alarming
By Jimmy P. Abayon

THE Philippine Public Health Association (PPHA) warned that the country's public health system would collapse unless something is done to arrest the continuing exodus of public health workers out of the country.

PPHA leaders were in Dumaguete City on October 18 to 20 for the association's 74th anniversary and convention.

The theme of this year's annual PPHA convention held at Bethel Guest House was "PHW Entrepreneurship: Solution to Outmigration."

Dr. Tita Callueng, PPHA board member from Tuguegarao City, estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the country's doctors and nurses have migrated to other countries.

But the figure, Callueng told a press conference Wednesday, could be as high as 40 percent if it includes the informal health system groups like midwives and barangay health workers.

PPHA claims a membership of some 45,000 public health workers nationwide.

"The good ones, those who are skilled and trained are leaving, affecting the health sector's quality of service," she lamented.

Dr. Lydia Depra-Ramos, PPHA president and regional director of the Department of Health (DOH) of Western Visayas, said the exodus could continue up to 2020 due to demand and high-paying jobs for health care workers outside the Philippines.

In Negros Oriental alone, said Dr. Fidencio Aurelia, chief of the province's health system network and president of PPHA for Region Central Visayas, many doctors and nurses have left and 20 percent more were scheduled to leave.

"The trend is becoming alarming," said Aurelia, former director of the Bayawan City District Hospital.

But the PPHA leaders said they could not blame the health workers for leaving.

Ramos said health workers, including doctors, nurses, midwives, medical technologists, sanitary inspectors, barangay health workers, dentists, and others, are receiving "very low" salaries and lacked support from local government units.

She cited what she described as the ever-burning issue on the controversial Magna Carta for Public Health Workers.

"Despite orders from the DILG and the law to implement the Magna Carta, it has remained un-enforced," Ramos lamented.

On the other hand, she said, parents spend so much for the medical education of their children but they could not recoup the expenses because the starting salary for a doctor remains only at P18,000.

The PPHA official said medical specialists have been lobbying to be recognized as such as she agreed that they should not be included in the Salary Standardization Law.

The situation is worse in the countryside where health facilities are non-existent or not conducive to self-fulfillment, Ramos noted.

"Their option is to get out...no choice," she said.

Two-fold goal

Ramos said the national convention in Dumaguete City was an "inter-active occasion" to exchange issues and concerns facing public health workers particularly on outmigration.

"If the trend continues," she warned, "the (country's) health system would collapse."

The DOH regional director said that as the main association of public health workers, PPHA was finding "some ways" to curtail or slow down the exodus.

She said the association would be driving at improving the working environment to make it conducive to health workers and elevating them socially and materially so they would stay put in the country.

"They deserve to be appreciated, supported, and given the benefits due them," Ramos said, adding that both goals aim to enhance the entrepreneurial spirit of public health workers.

Moreover, she said, PPHA would help open legal avenues to harness financial sources as alternative for better livelihood programs.

The association, Ramos said, would be opening its first pharmacy as a project involved in distributing cheap medicines to existing botica ng barangay under a tie-up with local government units in every region.

The first pharmacy is targeted to open before July next year in Negros Oriental because of its successful and existing seven inter-local health zones and 41 botica ng barangay that won the province a Galing Pook outstanding award for health service delivery last year.

FROM: Sun Star
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/dum/2006/10/22/news/health.workers.exodus.alarming.html

Posted by marisse on Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 4:38 PM |

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