POEA Health Workers Deployment Cap Yet to be Reached

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) stated that the 7,500 deployment cap for healthcare workers (HCWs) is still quite far from being reached.

In a virtual forum, POEA Chief Bernard Olalia noted, “Our 7,500 is good for 2022. According to our last data, the figure of 7,500 is still far from reach. If I’m not mistaken, our technical working group doesn’t need to have a meeting and make an assessment of the data.”

Olalia mentioned that there are enough nurses in the country. However, he did not provide the exact figure.

In addition, Olalia cited, “There is a high supply of our nurses because the PRC (Professional Regulation Commission) has already had two exams and our nurses are currently qualified. In case it will be breached, we will set meetings with those in charge.”

In a briefing that happened in May, Olaila mentioned nurses who were deployed from January to May had reached over 2,000.

Moreover, Olalia added that the deployment cap would not be automatically removed once the Philippines’ state of national emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic is lifted.

Olalia noted, “It will not be automatically lifted in the sense that it will be immediate. There will be an assessment of our mission-critical skills and this recommendation will be thrown to the technical working group. That is one of the things they will look into when there is no more state of emergency, maybe they will recommend lifting the deployment cap.”

Nonetheless, Olalia stated that they have yet to endorse the lifting of the deployment cap.

The government has demanded a deployment cap on the number of HCWs to be sent overseas to make sure that the country has enough medical workers amid the pandemic.