DOH exec urges newly licensed physicians to serve country

On behalf of the DOH, Vergeire congratulated the 3,538 new doctors who passed the recent licensure exams administered by the Board of Medicine. (File photo: Hush Naidoo/Unsplash)

MANILA – An official of the Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday encouraged the newly licensed physicians of the country to stay and serve.

“Tayo ay magsilbi sa ating bayan at tulungan ninyo po ang gobyerno para po tayo ay magkaroon nang mas maayos at robust na health system (Let us serve our country, help the government so that we would have a better, more robust health system),” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said during the Laging Handa public briefing aired over state-run PTV4.

On behalf of the DOH, Vergeire congratulated the 3,538 new doctors who passed the recent licensure exams administered by the Board of Medicine.

She said the people see the importance of medical doctors and the rest of the country’s health care workers, most especially in this time of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

Vergeire said the DOH has standardized the salaries in the government, including medical doctors working in government hospitals, on top of the incentive programs.

“Mayroon din ho tayo na malawak na mga training programs in our hospitals na maaari naman pong maging interested ang ating mga doktor para dito na lang po mag-train and not to go abroad (We also offer intensive training programs in our hospitals in which our new doctors might be interested so they can choose to stay here to train and not to go abroad),” Vergeire said.

President Rodrigo Duterte recently lifted the deployment ban for medical professionals wanting to leave the country and work abroad.

Vergeire said based on the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging and Infectious Diseases resolution, only 5,000 medical workers will be allowed to be deployed to other countries yearly.

“The basic rationale is for us, the country will be left with enough healthcare workers especially kapag nagkakaroon tayo ng mga ganitong sitwasyon like pandemics at hindi nauubusan ang ating bansa (during emergencies like the pandemic so that the country will not run out of medical workers),” she said.

The implementing guidelines for the deployment strategy still have to be discussed and that the DOH will release more information in the coming days, she added.