Probe delays in release of healthcare workers’ special risk allowance – lawmaker
FILE PHOTO: About 200 nurses and public health workers in protective suits stage a “sit-down protest’’ outside the Department of Health building in Manila on Wednesday, June 30, 2021, the day the Bayanihan 2 stimulus spending law lapsed. The workers are demanding the release of their benefits, including a monthly P3,000 COVID-19 hazard pay. INQUIRER/RICHARD A. REYES
MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker is seeking an investigation on the supposed “institutional and administrative impediments” that prevent the timely release of the special risk allowance of healthcare workers in the country.
House Resolution No. 2102 filed by Ang Probinsyano Rep. Alfred Delos Santos noted that there have been many complaints of delayed releases of the special risk allowance as well as “discrepancies in the actual amounts released to different healthcare workers.”
“The lament of our health workers on the low and delayed release of their benefits might end up with mass resignations of healthcare workers, leading to hospital understaffing,” he stated in the resolution.
“No amount of monetary compensation is ever enough to fully compensate for the risks associated with this pandemic and the sacrifices our health workers must endure to carry out their responsibilities; it is only right that we give them proper benefits,” the lawmaker added.
READ: P9 billion released for health workers’ special risk allowance – DBM
In a separate statement, Delos Santos shared his interview with nurse Sam Rivero on his radio program over RMN-DZXL.
Delos Santos said that when Rivero asked their human resources officer to compute his special risk allowance, he was told that this information is “confidential.”
“Bakit ayaw ipakita yung computation? Baka puwedeng maglabas ng memorandum from DOH [Department of Health] para maging transparent ang funds? ‘Yung kumikita dito, ‘yung pumipirma ng papel, sa tingin ko,” he said.
“Nakikita ko sa billboard sa EDSA, saludo kami sa inyong mga frontliners. Tayo, we love the frontliners so much. And then, we treat them like this?” he added.
