DOH to absorb nurses serving in remote areas

MANILA, Philippines - Here’s good news for nurses.

The Department of Health (DOH) is set to absorb the nurses serving in far-flung communities under the Registered Nurses for Health Enhancement and Local Services (RN Heals) program.

“We are proposing to regularize them, maybe next year. Eventually, even the local government units can also absorb the RH Heals nurses,” Health Secretary Enrique Ona said yesterday.

The DOH introduced the RN Heals program in 2011 to ensure the availability of healthcare services for patients in remote communities.

At the same time, the program was conceptualized to provide nurses with employment and training opportunities since there has been an oversupply of nurses in the country.

Ona noted that by hiring nurses they would be able to acquire actual employment experience, following reports that some hospitals abroad do not honor voluntary services rendered by foreign nurses as work experience.

Under the program, RN Heals nurses serve for one year in a community with a stipend of P8,000 from the national government and P2,000 from the LGUs where they are assigned.

From 2011 to Feb. 2013, 30,801 nurses have already been deployed by the DOH.

Ona also said that the DOH expects many LGUs to be able to put up more healthcare facilities because of the expansion of the coverage of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

“Maybe in the next two years, the LGUs will already be capable of hiring their own nurses from the money that will come from PhilHealth,” the DOH chief added.

Prior to the Aquino administration, indigent Filipinos were enrolled in PhilHealth through a sharing scheme between the national and the local governments in the payment of their premium.

But in 2011, the national government assumed the PhilHealth payment of 5.4 million poorest Filipino families and this will be expanded by next year to cover the “near poor” families.