The deployment of health care workers who got jobs abroad after reaching the 5,000 cap or ceiling imposed by the government was temporarily suspended.
This is in accordance with Advisory No. 71, recently released by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
The cap was implemented so that the Philippines would not run out of medical frontliners.
Returning workers and those hired in POEA’s government-to-government hiring programs in Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are exempted from the deployment suspension.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello also announced that the United Kingdom’s request to exempt Filipino nurses from the deployment cap who are scheduled to work in that country had been approved. Still, POEA has not yet received any documents on this.
“Kinakailangan din natin na magkaroon ng resolution din ang IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases) ‘no para i-grant ho ‘yong exemption na ‘yon so antayin lang ho natin,” said Bello.
For Bello, the UK exemption can now be implemented.
According to Bello, Germany is also asking for an exemption, which wants to hire 15,000 Filipino nurses.
Who are exempted from deployment cap of health workers?
That is why the increase in the deployment cap is being studied.
“Kapag nakita natin na mayroon tayong sapat na number of nurses, ang health care workers, it’s possible we can recommend… luluwagan ‘yong deployment cap, gagawin nating 10,000,” said Bello.
The Alliance of Healthcare Workers insisted that the government is also to blame for the departure of nurses and other health workers, who have long been neglected.
The Department of Labor and Employment supported all bills filed to raise healthcare workers’ wages and benefits, especially nurses.
The agency also encouraged nurses to complain to them if employers treated them wrongly.
Meanwhile, an official of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced that overseas Filipino workers heading to Singapore are not required to be injected with the COVID-19 vaccine to enter the said country.
According to Labor Attaché in Singapore Saul De Vries, the Singapore government implements strict quarantine protocols, but their requirement does not include the vaccination of incoming OFWs.
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