Over 26,000 nurses and other health workers in contractual positions will receive regular-employee benefits and bonuses on top of their salaries.
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said that it has approved the creation of exactly 26,035 contractual positions for health workers under the Human Resource for Health Deployment Program (HRHDP) of the Department of Health (DOH).
Aside from nurses, HRHDP includes deployment of medical officers, dentists, medical technologists, nutritionists, pharmacists, physical therapists, and midwives. They enjoy employer-employee relationship and are covered by civil service rules and regulations.
In the last 18 years, the DOH had been engaging medical and allied-medical workers on a contract of service (COS) basis and without employer-employee relationship. In addition, said health workers are only receiving basic salaries without other benefits in the past years.
The DOH pursued the creation of the aforementioned 26,035 contractual positions such that, in addition to their salaries, the subject health workers will now receive benefits currently being received by a regular government personnel, such as Personnel Economic Relief Allowance, Mid-Year Bonus, Year-End Bonus, and Cash Gift, among others.
Under HRHDP, these health workers will be deployed to 1,634 cities and municipalities nationwide, especially in far-flung, geographically-isolated, disadvantaged, and remote areas with inadequate personnel to enhance the access to and delivery of health care services to the public.
HUMAN RESOURCE FOR HEALTH DEPLOYMENT PROGRAM
The HRHDP is a strategy of the DOH to augment, redistribute, and retain health workers in the country to enhance access to quality health services.
The goal of the HRHDP is to assign at least one (1) dedicated health worker per barangay to ensure availability of health services eight (8) hours a day, seven (7) days a week. This program also augments the manpower complement of Rural Health Units (RHUs) of different local government units to ensure the provision of healthcare services 24/7, especially emergency and birthing home services.
The HRHDP’s priority scope of areas include: geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas; municipalities belonging to 6th, 5th, and 4th classes; identified municipalities with indigenous peoples; identified municipalities with Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title barangays; municipalities with identified pharmaceutical programs; and, focus areas based on the Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition.