NURSES CRY OVER LONG OVERDUE SALARY INCREASE: Warns that this is causing Nurses to Consider Overseas employment

Press Release
July 24, 2008


NURSES CRY OVER LONG OVERDUE SALARY INCREASE:
Warns that this is causing Nurses to Consider Overseas
employment

“We are just asking for the implementation of
our Nursing Law!” This is the message of the National
President of the Philippine Nurses Association, Dr Leah
Samaco Paquiz. She explained that since 2002, the
Republic Act 9173, also known as the Nursing Act of
2002, the salaries of nurses should have been not lower
than salary grade 15. “This is clear in Section 32 that ‘in
order to enhance the general welfare, commitment to
service and professionalism of nurses, the minimum base
pay of nurses working in public health institution shall not
be lower than salary grade 15,’” points out Paquiz.

Six years after the enactment of the Nursing Law,
nurses remain to be underpaid in the Philippines. Under
the law, a nurse in the government should be receiving a
monthly salary of P16,093.00, but many nurses are still
receiving way below this legal monthly salary. Some are
receiving less that P 10,000 monthly income. “How do we
expect these nurses to remain in government service with
this kind of salary?” ask Paquiz. She points out that while
salary is not the reason why nurses serve, she
recognizes that the foreign employment becomes more
attractive to these nurses, who would have loved to
serve Filipinos if only they can be paid fair enough.
Paquiz asserts that many nurses are not intending to go
abroad and would love to serve, but are discouraged by
the very low salary they are getting from the workload
that are given them. A nurse attends to fifty patients in
many hospital settings, even if the ideal ratio is 1 nurse is
to 10 patients. But nurses do not complain and still
manage to perform their best.

“We need to entice these nurses to work in public
health and in government service by this simple request to
provide them what is just and legal,” adds Paquiz. She
clarifies that what they are asking for is not beyond what
is mandated by the law. “What’s taking them so long to
implement this salary, which beneficiary is not only the
nurses but the general public that they most willingly
serve?” she inquires.

Nurses do not intend to rally or boycott their
post. “But let us not wait for the time that they all leave to
work abroad even if in their hearts, they love to serve the
Filipinos,” warns Paquiz. “We can only have government
to blame, if it fails to look into giving nurses what is due
them,” she ends.


DR. LEAH PRIMITIVA G. SAMACO-PAQUIZ
National President