BY CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
A resolution requesting Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia to look into the plight of professional healthcare frontliners in Bacolod City to avert an imminent breakdown of the city’s healthcare services, was proposed by Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr.
The resolution said Bacolod City’s professional healthcare providers are threatening of not reporting for work due to demanding work environment with less remuneration and benefits.
Local Bacolod hospitals have issued advisories not to accept patients because their capacity to accept these patients with regards to COVID-19 has reached critical levels and they lack professional workforce to attend to them, it said.
Gamboa sympathized with medical health workers from the different hospitals in the city during a rally they staged at the Fountain of Justice yesterday that coincided with the 49th anniversary of the Declaration of Martial Law.
Jay Pabalate, union president of Doctor’s Hospital-NAFLU-KMU, said they are asking the Department of Health (DOH) to provide equitable benefits for frontliners especially health workers working in hospitals including those assigned to security and janitorial services.
Pabalate said health workers attending to COVID-19 patients receive about P5,000 for 22 days while others receive less, which they consider to be discriminatory.
Bayan-Negros secretary general Noli Rosales said the frontliners are considered by the government as modern day heroes but they are being deprived of benefits due them.
“We cannot blame our frontliners if they resign from the hospitals where they are employed because they are being neglected by the government,” he said.
Rosales said they are calling for the mass hiring of medical workers to help address the national state emergency.
If the government fails to give attention to the demands of the medical frontliners, they will continue to hold protest and also call for the resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque, he said.
Cases of negligence and corruption should also be filed against the Health Secretary, Rosales added.*
