MANILA, Philippines – Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Monday said the number of deployed healthcare workers has yet to reach its cap of 7,500.
With this, the current deployment of health care workers overseas is still ongoing and the cap will not affect current applications, POEA administrator Bernard Olalia said.
“Mahigit dalawang libo [na healthcare workers] pa lamang po ang nadedeploy po natin [POEA], ang ibig pong sabihin niyan, malayo pa po bago natin maabot yung 7,500,” he said in a public briefing.
(There are just over 2,000 healthcare workers deployed by POEA, which means that it is still a long way before we reach 7,500.)
Olalia said government agencies are still having discussions on the call of private hospitals to decrease the number of deployed healthcare workers because the current number of nurses in the country is lacking.
READ: Private hospitals want deployment cap for health workers set at 5,000
“Pinag-uusapan [ng mga ahensya] kung paano po ang supply ng ating nurses dahil nga po nagkaroon ng pandemya at yung ating nursing licensure exam ay naapektuhan noong nakaraang taon, 2020 at 2021,” he said.
(Agencies are still discussing the supply of nurses because we just had a pandemic and the nursing licensure exam was affected last year, 2020, and 2021.)
Olalia added that the need for nurses abroad has also increased, and the Philippines have entered into several bilateral labor agreements to address the shortages in manpower in other countries.
While the demand for nurses rose, Olalia said the number of available nurses in the country also increased following the previous licensure examinations, where 11,000 individuals passed in 2021 and 6,000 passed in 2022.
“So, ito po yung mga factors na tinitignan natin sa mga darating na araw — nang sa gayon ay maiwasan po nating ang mga challenges na haharapin po natin sa deployment cap natin,” he said.
(So, these are the factors that we will investigate in the coming days — so that we can avoid challenges that our deployment cap might face.) – Christine Annie S. Asistio, INQUIRER.net intern
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