Duterte Removes Prohibition Of Medical Workers From Working Abroad

JAKARTA - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has lifted a rule that prohibits sending medical workers abroad. This means that Filipino medical workers can return to work in a foreign country.

"The president has agreed to lift the temporary suspension on sending nurses and other medical workers," Manpower Minister Silvestre Bello told Reuters, Saturday, November 21.

Bello said that the spread of the corona virus in the Philippines had begun to slow down, and conditions in the country were getting better. So that the government can allow medical workers to go to work.

The Philippines has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia. However, the number of cases and daily deaths has decreased.

To ensure the Philippines has medical professionals who will continue to fight the pandemic in its own country. The government will only grant permits for 5,000 medical workers to go abroad per year.

"We started with a limit of only 5,000 people, so we would not have a shortage of medical workers, but this number may increase gradually," said Bello.

In 2019, nearly 17,000 nurses were awarded overseas work contracts, according to data managed by the Commission for Higher Education and the Philippines' Overseas Employment Administration.

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, starting April 2020, the Philippine Government has prohibited nurses, doctors and other medical workers from going to work abroad, stating that they are needed to deal with the health crisis at home.

Thousands of health workers, who call themselves "priso-nurses" (nurses who are like prisoners), have applied to the government to allow them to return to take jobs abroad, Reuters reported in September.

The nurses said they felt they were underpaid, underappreciated and unprotected in the Philippines.

Then lifting the ban on going abroad is a "good development", said Maristela Abenojar, president of the Philippine Nursing Association. He also asked the government to realize their commitment to provide better wages and other benefits if it wanted nurses to remain at home.

Medical workers from the Philippines are at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, as well as at home.

The daily case increase in the Philippines has now steadily remained below 2,000 cases since November 10, while the total death toll was 8,025 cases as of November 20 - equivalent to 1.93% of the total cases of 415,067.

The filling of hospital beds has also begun to decline from a critical level, and the Philippine government has gradually relaxed quarantine measures to start improving the economy.