DOH seeks P5.2-B budget to hire 17,757 additional health personnel

Facade of the DOH main office in Manila. INQUIRER.net file photo / Consuelo Marquez

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) has asked for a P5.2-billion budget for the hiring of 17,757 health personnel to augment the country’s health workforce in view of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak.

This was included in President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth weekly report to Congress on the use of his additional power granted to him to address the health crisis on Monday.

Duterte said the DOH submitted its budget proposal to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) last April 15.

The added manpower will be composed of  15,757 Human Resources for Health and 2,000 deputized physicians.

They will be deployed in priority health facilities such as the Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Hospital and Sanitarium, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine General Hospital, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, National Quarantine Facilities, other hospitals to be designated for COVID-19 response.

As of April 16, there are 743 Human Resources for Health (HRH) under the DOH HRH Deployment Program, Duterte noted in his report

The Health department is currently on the lookout for physicians, nurses, medical technologists, and other support health personnel to be hired on a contract of service (COS) basis, for a minimum of three months.

In his third weekly report to Congress last week, Duterte pointed out that the DBM had approved the request of DOH to hire 857 COS workers to be deployed in different hospitals in Metro Manila.

The monthly cost for the additional workers will be around P35.823 million, chargeable against the available released allotment for DOH under the 2020 national budget.

On Monday afternoon, the DOH reported 200 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the country’s total to 6,459, of whom, 613 recovered while 428 died.

Edited by JPV