The female dressing room of the endoscopy unit at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center on May 8, 2020. Gigie Cruz, ABS-CBN News/File
MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) is looking at an "incentive program" from other countries to help the local health sector address brain drain, an official said Tuesday.
Less than half of Filipino nurses stay and work in the Philippines, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeir said, amid continued migration of healthcare workers to other countries.
"We are seeing this trend na mukhang magtutuloy-tuloy. That's why we would like an incentive program [with other countries]," she told ANC's "Headstart."
"You get our nurses? You give us scholarships so that we can train our people and have expertise and bring them back here," she added.
Vergeire said DOH knows the reality that more than half of Filipino nurses seek work abroad or other career opportunities.
"Out of all those produced for the country, about only 30-40 percent stay and work for us," she said.
"Sixty percent of what we produced are going [abroad or] leaving us. Maybe there's another 20 percent staying and working in another profession," she added.
In the Philippines, private hospitals pay their nurses between P9,000 and P15,000, the Philippine Nurses Association earlier said. Meanwhile, entry-level nurses in public hospitals start with a monthly salary of P33,000.
In a past press briefing, Vergeire said the Philippine government could not prevent healthcare workers from leaving the country "because that’s their right to find more productive and bigger pay."
The DOH has proposed to Congress to standardize the salaries of nurses in public and private hospitals.
The agency also eyes improving the benefits of healthcare workers and providing more scholarships.