MANILA, Philippines — The deployment cap for Filipino health workers should be set at 5,000 per year, an official of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi) said on Thursday.
In a Laging Handa public briefing, PHAPi president Jose Rene de Grano was asked if it is already time to lift the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration’s deployment ban for health workers.
“Palagay ko po dapat ay i-restrict po natin ‘yan. Siguro ‘yung dating 5,000 a year will be enough,” he replied.
(I think we should restrict it. Maybe the 5,000 a year before will be enough.)
Currently, the deployment cap for health workers is at 7,000 annually.
De Grano noted that 11,000 and 6,000 individuals passed in the 2021 and May 2022 Nurse Licensure Examinations, respectively.
With the number of passers, the government can gauge how many nurses are needed here and can be deployed abroad, he pointed out.
“So, more or less, maga-gauge natin kung ilan ba talaga ang pwede nating palabasin at papuntahin sa abroad,” he said.
(So, more or less, we can gauge how many health workers we can allow out of the country.)
“Huwag naman po sigurong sobra to the point na talagang mauubos na ang mga nurses natin dito sa ating bansa,” de Grano continued.
(Not too much to the point that we’ll lose nurses here in the country.)
To date, some health facilities in the country are seeing a rise in hospital utilization, being occupied mostly by non-COVID-19 cases.