CAMARINES Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte yesterday urged the Senate to approve the proposed expansion of the country’s Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) in preparation for future public health emergencies.
He pointed out that the House of Representatives had already approved
House Bill (HB) No. 8999 earlier this year, but its counterpart bill remains pending at the committee level in the Senate.
“With global health experts confirming that this won’t be our last pandemic, we must continue to strengthen our healthcare system starting with the people who will man the frontlines in our fight against the next global health crisis,” said Villafuerte, one of the bill’s principal authors.
Under House Bill (HB) No. 8999, the MRC will be composed of licensed physicians, medicine graduates, medical students, registered nurses, and other allied health professionals, including those who have retired and are no longer practicing under a hospital setting.
The proposed MRC may also be mobilized during times of calamities to provide immediate aid during rescue and relief operations.
The President of the Philippines, upon the recommendation of the Department of Health (DOH), may also order the mobilization of the MRC to complement the AFP Medical Corps “in case of the declaration of a state of war, state of lawless violence or state of calamity.”
The bill provides that members of the MRC be covered by labor laws and entitled to “all the pay and allowances, medical care, hospitalization and other privileges and benefits” during their deployment and receive all their existing benefits from their regular jobs during the mobilization period.
The House last August also approved HB No. 9389, which seeks reforms in nursing education, including the introduction of basic and postgraduate programs that would train and encourage nurses to work in communities and seek leadership or management positions in their profession in local hospitals instead of leaving for overseas jobs.
The government recently released P1.185 billion for the special risk allowance (SRA) of medical frontliners to recognize their sacrifices in the fight against the pandemic.
Last week, both the House and the Senate passed their respective versions of this SRA bill which seeks to institutionalize the extra pay for health workers.
