DOH: Health workers under mandatory quarantine should still get benefits

Health workers are still entitled to their benefits even if they undergo mandatory quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure, the Department of Health (DOH) said Wednesday.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said “health workers who are to undergo quarantine because of being exposed should still receive their benefits” under a joint circular of the DOH and the Department of Budget and Management.

“Kailangan po nating pagsabihan ito pong ating mga ospital o ‘di kaya ay ibang mga ahensya… They still have to receive their hazard pay even when they undergo quarantine kasi ito pong quarantine ay kino-consider natin as a paid time for work,” she said in an online briefing.

(We need to remind our hospitals or agencies… [Health workers] still have to receive their hazard pay even when they undergo quarantine because the quarantine is considered as a paid time for work.)

Malacañang has also said that no deductions should be made to the hazard pay of health workers.

This was after some groups said they received reports that health workers’ hazard pay was cut down drastically due to the mandatory quarantine period.

A special risk allowance (SRA) is mandated for health workers "directly catering to or in contact with COVID-19 patients for every month that they are serving during the state of national emergency” under the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act.

This is on top of the active duty hazard pay (ADHP) provided under Bayanihan 2 and the hazard pay under the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.

Health workers respond

Robert Mendoza, national president of the Alliance of Health Workers, echoed calls for the hazard pay to be given in full.

“Hindi naman kasalanan ng mga health workers na dapat mag-quarantine dahil nahawaan sila ng COVID-19 (It’s not the health workers’ fault that they need to undergo quarantine because they contracted COVID-19),” he told GMA News Online.

Philippine Orthopedic Center Employees Union president Sean Velchez said the statements of the DOH and the Palace should translate to “retroactive payment” of the ADHP, SRA, and hazard pay provided by the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.

He also urged the government to remove and amend “the selective and stringent conditions in giving the SRA and ADHP… in order for all health workers to receive the above-mentioned benefits.”

“At the moment, SRA is only given to those with ‘direct exposure to COVID patients’ without considering that the virus is airborne and or highly contagious regardless of unit assignment in a health facility with COVID-positive patients,” Velchez stressed. -MDM, GMA News