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MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Philippine Employment Agency Abroad (POEA) have banned medical health workers from leaving the country due to a lack of staff in local hospitals due to outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In a resolution dated April 2, the POEA Governing Board led by Secretary of Labor Silvestre Bello III ordered the suspension of the deployment abroad of Filipino doctors and nurses until the state of emergency is lifted.
In addition to doctors and nurses, health professionals who are covered by the deployment ban include microbiologists, clinical analysts, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, radiological technicians, nursing assistants, health care and personal care supervisors, and even repairers. of hospital equipment.
POEA said it is prioritizing “the allocation of human resources to the national health care system at the time of the national state of emergency” as the government works to control the spread of COVID-19.
He added that in light of the COVID-19 crisis, it is “of primary national interest to ensure that the country continues to have, maintain supplies, and prepare enough health personnel to deal with any contingency.”
The Undersecretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Dodo Dulay, tweeted a copy of the DOLE-POEA resolution before which the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Teodoro Locsin Jr., expressed his dismay.
Locsin said such a decision is against the Constitution.
He added that retaining Filipino health workers as volunteers in the country will only serve justice if the government pays them the same amount they get abroad.
As a shock to the sudden deployment ban, many health professionals who have an existing job abroad and were supposed to leave the country were fired at airports.
In response, Locsin said he will investigate the matter to help stranded Filipino health workers so they can return to work where they have existing contracts.
It is not clear in the POEA resolution what specific employment situation of Filipino health workers covers: whether the ban applies only to newly recruited or also to returning health workers with contracts abroad.
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