Many nurses are forced to leave the country in search of better opportunities, Paquiz said, and those who stay have to face numerous challenges. “Many hospitals are understaffed; a nurse can expect to handle 20 to 30 patients.” She added that they can expect to have meager or no hazard pay and travel allowance; an unsupportive work environment; massive multitasking without focus on nursing outcomes; and, since highly skilled nurses are in short supply, trainings and certification programs “shortcuted.” “Quality care is compromised as a result.” Paquiz is skeptical of the Nurse Deployment Program and the Doctors to the Barrios, noting that they are mostly only “temporary”—as in the case of the NDP and the DTTB, which employs health workers for only two years. Salary and other forms of compensation are not that competitive, she added. “The gap between what a health worker in government gets compared to one in the private sector is too wide.” To fix the healthcare delivery system, Paquiz said: “We should first fix health human resource. The workforce needs to be nurtured, especially on the provision for competitive working conditions, including on the salary and nonmonetary perks.” At the Philippine College of Physicians Health Forum on Feb. 11, Philippine Society of General Internal Medicine president Dr. Antonio Dans said there is a need to retrain and redistribute health workers, as well as to reassess the direction of present health policy. Read more: business.inquirer.net/166164/a-symptom-of-the-greater-problem-in-health-system#ixzz2w1a9Vr8r Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 10:06:04 +0000