'Frankly, a disservice': Hospital unions seek extension to submit requirements for hazard pay

MANILA, Philippines — Workers' unions from private hospitals are appealing to the health department to extend the one-day deadline to turn in requirements to receive coronavirus-related incentives, which they said was a disservice to the many dealing with the pandemic.

The coalition in a letter to Secretary Francisco Duque III said the development came as a surprise to both hospital administrators and employees as they only found out about the given date last Monday.

"The records required for the submission of the requirements needed to be retrieved and reviewed," the group said, "and given the tedious workload in hospitals today, would render it impossible to complete given the time frame."

Hospital personnel directly in contact and tending to coronavirus patients are entitled to receive their active hazard pay and special risk allowance per month under the Bayanihan 2 law.

Ten union leaders coming from hospitals such as the Chinese General, St. Luke's, University of Santo Tomas, Cardinal Santos and The Medical City, to name a few, asked Duque to extend the submission for a week. 

They continued that per the Metro Manila Center for Health Development, failing to turn in the requirements would only forfeit their receiving of the said pay. 

'Disservice to health workers'

"This is unacceptable, and frankly, a disservice to the thousands of healthcare frontliners who have risked their life and limb to combat the COVID-19 pandemic," the letter continued. 

Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte signed two administrative orders allowing additional pay to workers in both public and private hospitals. 

Administrative Order 35 would grant workers up to P3,000 in hazard pay a month, while Administrative Order 36 would grant special risk allowance at P5,000 for those who directly attend to COVID-19 patients. 

It was also revealed in November from DOH's own figures that more than 16,000 health workers have yet to receive their hazard pay, which the group Filipino Nurses United called as government's "gross neglect" to provide just compensation for them.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros in a statement on Wednesday afternoon backed the coalition's call for a weeklong extension, as she said the earlier deadline only adds more burden to medical personnel. 

"Not only have our health workers been put under inhumane conditions in this pandemic, but it looks like we're also exploiting them," she said in mixed English and Filipino. "If the reports are true, why are we depriving them of even the small salary and benefits that is rightfully theirs?"

Various issues have long been existing within the health sector, as is with other industries in society, but the pandemic has only exposed further and heightened these over the past months.

Over the course of the health crisis, medical workers have had to deal with discrimination, violence even, on top of the delay in the release of their compensation, along with protesting government's move to halt their deployment abroad in the hopes of better wages, to have more workers tend to patients here at home. 

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