Proposed 2021 national health budget uncaring, callous –FNU

A nurses' group on Saturday claimed that the proposed 2021 national health budget is an "uncaring" budget, with only a small percentage supposedly allotted for the health of citizens.

"The proposed 2021 national health budget is an uncaring budget for a nation suffering from hunger, devastating economic and health effects of a pandemic that continuously wreaks havoc on both the majority poor as well as the health care workers in the frontline," the Filipino Nurses United said in a statement.

"The allotment of two percent for health from the national budget reflects the severe callousness on our people’s health and safety, and survival needs while abandoning the distress call of health workers at this time of uncontained pandemic while intending to give the huge budget chunk to firearms, intelligence, roads and infrastructure," it added.

The group claimed that the proposed budget will not lead to an increase in health capacity standards and will slash operational expenses of public hospitals including the budget for public health.

Further, the 2021 budget allotted for health falls short in addressing many health and nursing problems, including "chronic" understaffing in national and local government hospitals.

The group said the proposed 2021 budget does not clearly show the sustained implementation of the entry salary upgrade of government nurses which has a P3 billion budget this year 2020 from the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund.

The FNU has denounced the issuance of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) circular 2020-4 that, while it upgrades the salary of more than 6,000 government nurses with Nurse 1 position, it supposedly downgrades the positions of the rest of the nurses from Nurse II to Nurse VII.

The FNU added the DBM circular has essentially "thrown away" the credited dedicated years of government service and qualified rank positions of around 50,000 nurses.

"FNU sees the series of pronouncements of government officials as insulting and demoralizing to the nursing profession. However, this is almost nothing compared to the urgency and gravity of the crisis being faced by our sick and economically devastated countrymen that should be seriously addressed by an adequate, socially caring, and disaster-responsive national budget," it said.

FNU thus recommended the allotment of the budget for the following:

1. Regularization of all, job order (JO), contract of service (COS), Nurse Deployment Program (NDP) and all other contractual nurses;
2. Filling up of vacant positions of all government health workers and creation of new plantilla positions such as additional 6000 staff nurses in hospitals and 42,000 public health nurses to have one nurse in every barangay (42,000 barangays);
3. Sustained implementation of SG15 entry-level salary of government nurses and consequent salary upgrading of other senior nurses regardless of employment status and government employer (national, local, GOCCs, SUCs, NGAs, PGH)
4. Provision of P100k compensation for COVID-19 and work-related sicknesses, special risk allowance (SRA), hazard pay of P500 for 8 hours duty to all nurses and health workers and death benefit of P1M during the pandemic not just regardless of community quarantine status;
5. Provision of free, adequate, and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPEs);
6. Conduct of regular RT-PCR COVID test for all government and private health workers every 15 days and provision of paid 14 days quarantine period;
7. Provision of free food, accommodation, transportation, and medical expenses for all frontline public and private health workers; and
8. Allocation of health emergency funds to our private sector nurse colleagues and health workers for additional salaries, SRA and hazard pay as well as PPEs

— DVM, GMA News