Solon Pushes For Solutions To Improve Wages Of Private Healthcare Workers

House Deputy Minority Leader Bernadette Herrera proposed a new wage category to improve the salaries of workers in private medical facilities.

The Bagong Henerasyon (BH) party-list representative noted the huge disparity between the wages of private healthcare workers with their counterparts in public healthcare facilities and described it as a "glaring and continuing injustice."

Herrera proposed the creation of a new wage category for healthcare workers. In doing this, she asked for Congress, the Department of Budget and Management and the Department of Finance to study "two sets of solutions" in sourcing the funds for the proposed increased salaries of private healthcare workers.

The Solon noted that in the current regime of wage laws, the minimum wage law classifies workers into agricultural, non-agricultural, administrative and clerical, industrial zone and household workers.

"This category should have a national minimum wage rate that should be at least 50 percent higher than the highest rate in the National Capital Region (NCR). If it were entirely up to me, the daily minimum wage of an entry-level healthcare worker in the private sector should be at least P1,000 a day or P22,000 per month for at least 22 days of work in a month," Herrera said in this Sunstar report.

"Given current economic conditions and the essential and crucial role of healthcare workers, P1,000 a day is a just minimum wage at the entry-level. The wage rates of those at higher than entry-level should of course be higher," she added.

In order for private hospitals to afford the suggested salaries, the lawmaker said national and local governments could offer a direct subsidy of P400 and P100 respectively to the daily minimum wage for 22 days.

"The budget for the P400 x 22 or P8,800 can be divided, with some lodged with the Department of Labor and Employment (following the Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program model of wage subsidy given during the pandemic) while some can be a direct subsidy budget lodged with the Small Business Corporation of the DTI which already has a wage subsidy program in place," she explained in her proposal.

Another form of subsidy for private healthcare facilities could be service contracting much like the EDSA bus carousel program of the Department of Transportation. The Department of Education is also implementing service contracting by sending students who can no longer be accommodated in congested public schools to private schools.

Another way for private hospitals to afford the increase in wages is for the House of Representatives to expand the coverage of lawmakers' medical assistance referrals to include private hospitals. This way, she said, hospitals can augment their funds with the money coming from the referrals.