PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. yesterday vowed to work closely with Congress and the Philippine Nurses’ Association (PNA) for the passage of the new Philippine Nursing Practice Act to protect the interests and welfare of the nursing profession.
The President, addressing celebrations for the PNA’s 100th founding anniversary at the Manila Hotel, said government recognizes the hard work and sacrifices of the health professionals, especially the nurses, who risked their health and lives to care for others amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
He said Filipino nurses are known in the world not just for being strong and capable, and competent and dedicated, but also for compassion and kindness.
“As your President, you may rest assured that my office is always open for meaningful dialogue to address the issues concerning our nurses and allied healthcare professionals. In fact, I have taken special note of the clamor to address issues in the nursing profession by the passage of the new Philippine Nursing Practice Act. This Executive department, together with Congress, will work with you to achieve these goals,” Marcos Jr. said.
He said it is his administration’s goal as well to improve the working condition of nurses, address the disparity in salaries between nurses in the government and private hospitals, and address the uneven distribution of nurses in the country.
He said the government is also committed to open more slots for the deployment of nurses abroad while striving to improve opportunities domestically.
“In order to do that, we have to address issues related to health facilities, benefits, and security of tenure,” the President said.
Marcos said among the programs being pursued by his administration to support the development of Filipino nurses are the Nursing Certification Program which strengthens nurses’ competencies in various specialty areas, and the Primary Care Workers’ Certification Program that provides eligibility requirements, standard competencies, training mechanisms, and certification processes that ensure competent and quality staffing for the healthcare system.
The government also supports leadership development courses for public health nurses.
“Certainly, we will not stop with just providing programs that improve your capacity as nurses. We will continue to provide you with the benefits that you deserve as healthcare workers,” the President said.
As this developed, the President said that as of August 19, the government has disbursed P25.82 billion worth of benefits to healthcare workers, especially our nurses.
He said these benefits include hazard duty pay, COVID-19 sickness and death compensation, meals, accommodation, and transportation allowances, life insurance, special risk allowance, and the One COVID-19 allowance.
Marcos, who recalled the care that he received from the nurses when he first caught COVID-19 in March 2020, said the amount is not enough but it will have to do for now as the government currently has a limited budget.
He also said that no amount of compensation or award is enough to match the Filipino nurses’ sacrifice, capabilities, and dedication especially their caring and eventually saving, patients who are already nearing death.
