EDITORIAL - Stopping the nursing exodus

As the COVID-19 pandemic started, nursing organizations estimated that some 300,000 nurses in the country were out of work, many of them by choice. The pandemic did not lead to an increase in the number of nurses in the hospitals. Instead the opposite happened: the risk of serious COVID illness and death, and the possibility of infecting vulnerable members of their households, led to a shortage of nursing staff, with even the major hospitals that can afford high pay seeing their nurses going on indefinite leave or resigning.

Nurses’ organizations point out that their entry pay in smaller private hospitals ranges from P8,000 to P12,000 a month. The amount is P35,000 in government hospitals, but some 50,000 of the nurses are contractuals and are not entitled to that amount. At the Philippine General Hospital, health workers complain that they have yet to get their COVID risk allowance covering three months this year.

As a new administration came to power, the Filipino Nurses United or FNU estimated that 316,000 of the country’s 917,000 registered nurses have chosen to work overseas. The economic crisis spawned by the pandemic continues to drive nurses to find jobs abroad.

President Marcos, in a speech this week, promised to find ways of improving the plight of nurses. The FNU is proposing an entry salary of P50,000 for nurses in private hospitals – an amount that the group says is based on the living wage as computed by the National Economic and Development Authority.

Considering the challenges of the job, which have been highlighted by COVID, the amount seems reasonable. Private hospital operators acknowledge the need to pay their nurses well. But the hospitals may also need help to make this possible. The operators point out that smaller hospitals in particular, which serve remote areas where health facilities are inadequate, cannot hope to match the compensation offered by hospitals abroad such as those in the United Kingdom, where the nurse who administered the world’s first globally accepted COVID vaccine is a Filipina.

The hospitals’ woes have been compounded by the slow release of their reimbursement claims by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. Small hospitals cannot afford long-term IOUs to their suppliers, and salaries and benefits must be paid in cash and on time. The President will have to balance the needs of health frontliners with those of private hospitals, which augment the health care services provided by the government.

A timely release of private hospitals’ PhilHealth claims can ease the situation. At the same time, the government can speed up the release of health frontliners’ One COVID Allowance, and move to regularize those working under contract. Health frontliners face the same risks around the world. Better compensation and security of tenure push Filipino nurses to join the exodus.