Resignation of health workers hurting St. Luke’s hospitals operations —exec

An official of the St. Luke's Medical Center on Thursday attributed the full capacity status of its hospitals in Quezon City and Taguig City to the resignation of health workers.

In a radio interview, St. Luke’s executive vice president and chief medical officer Dr. Benjamin Campomanes said that both of their hospitals can no longer accept COVID-19 patients for now.

“It’s mainly on manpower. The rooms puwedeng i-extend or whatever pero yung workforce is the problem (The rooms can be extended or whatever but the workforce is the problem),” he said.

Each of the hospitals allocated 30 to 35 percent of their bed capacity for COVID-19 cases, which is around 90 to 120 slots, according to him. Citing as an example, he said their hospital usually has 66 personnel but it went down to 43.

“And the reason for that, resignations,” he said, adding that most of the health workers had already left the country and taken jobs abroad.

As well, Campomanes said the number of health workers on duty has declined because some of them had been infected by the coronavirus and their co-workers were put under quarantine as protocol.

Several groups of health workers are threatening the government of resignation and protest actions as a call for the release of funds for all the benefits to the sector.

On Wednesday, the Department of Budget and Management announced that it released P311.79 million but only for the long overdue special risk allowances (SRAs) of health workers.

On Thursday, Alliance of Health Workers president Robert Mendoza lamented that the Department of Health has yet to provide the P38,000 worth of meal and transportation allowance from December 2020 to June 2021, as well as the P3,000 monthly active duty hazard pay.

The AHW said it is now giving the government only until Friday to release these funds or else it will push its wide protest action. -MDM, GMA News