MANILA, Philippines — With the fight against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) taking its toll on hospital frontliners, the Department of Health has intensified efforts to find more health professionals willing to do volunteer work for one month.
Calling them “healthcare warriors,” the DOH is offering volunteer licensed doctors and nurses a daily compensation of P500 as daily compensation, for an eight-hour shift, a sum that others may consider a pittance for a dangerous frontline work.
“We are facing a formidable but beatable enemy! We need more healthcare warriors in the fight against COVID-19!” the DOH said in a Facebook post on Friday.
“We are looking for doctors, nurses, nurse assistants, and hospital orderlies who will heed the call to serve,” it added.
Doctors and nurses can be assigned in the three COVID-19 referral hospitals — Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine General Hospital, and Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital — where they will work for 14 consecutive days in 8-hour shifts.
Once they have completed their volunteer work, they will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine on the site as the work would involve direct contact with COVID-19 patients. Volunteers will also be provided with food and accommodation during their duty.
Some doctors, meanwhile, can render volunteer work through “telemedicine service” where they will work from home advising patients online or via telephone on health care.
The DOH will provide insurance of cash compensation of P100,000 to public and private health workers who may contract severe COVID-19 infection on duty, and P1 million to public and private health workers who may die fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the Department of Health has yet to give an official tally of the number of health professionals who have died due to COVID-19, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP) has said that nine doctors have already succumbed to the disease, the latest of whom was pediatician Salvacion Gatchalian.