Health Secretary Francisco Duque assured that his department will carry out President Rodrigo’s order to provide within 10 days from Friday the benefits it still has not received.
At the Inter-Agency Task Force meeting Tuesday night, Duque said they have already submitted all the documents related to the release of about P311 million for special risk allowance of more than 20,000 health care workers from December 2020 to this June.
He said the Department of Budget and Management has the next step in the hands of the funds to be released and given to hospitals.
“Within your prescribed period of 10 days, we are hoping the SARO . . . the DBM will release the SARO (Miyerkoles), Mr. President. We have been following it up with them, Mr. President, and also the contingent fund has also been prepared. We are committed to deliver on the said timeframe that you have indicated last Friday,” said Duque.
The June 30 deadline has been reached for the Bayanihan Law, but the special risk allowance has not been given to all health care workers.
The undistributed funds have been returned by the Department of Health (DOH) to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Duque assures health workers’ benefits will be provided by set deadline
Nor can it be casually funded without a law.
“We need a law kasi reverted na yan sa Bayanihan 2. We released P9.02 billion for SRA in June of this year, and they reverted an amount. Unfortunately, without a law, we cannot provide any amount for the SRA at the moment,” said DBM OIC Undersecretary Tina Rose Canda.
Some health workers’ unions such as St Lukes and UST Hospital threaten mass resignation if the special risk allowance of health workers would not be released.
The Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) warns that the problem of mass resignation will worsen if the problems of health workers are not addressed immediately.
The release of a report from the Commission on Audit on some issues with DOH funding added to the resentment of health workers.
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