The Philippines Offers to Trade Nurses for Vaccines

Amid the worldwide shortage of medical workers, many countries have been seeking to hire Filipino healthcare workers (Flickr).

The Philippines’ Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has requested that Britain and Germany donate doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines in exchange for an exemption from the current limit on the deployment of Filipino healthcare workers. Britain has declined the offer, while Germany has still not answered.

The Philippines temporarily suspended the deployment of its healthcare workers abroad in April 2020 to combat the virus domestically. DOLE lifted this restriction in November but only allowed up to 5,000 healthcare workers to leave the country every year.

Facing a shortage of healthcare workers, Britain and Germany had requested an exemption from the deployment cap, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III revealed on February 15. A recent study concluded that Britain may need 50,000 more nurses over the next four years to overcome the pandemic. Germany is also in need of more nurses, seeking to hire 15,000 new Filipino medical workers.

Director of International Labor Affairs Bureau Alice Visperas said that the Philippines was willing to lift the cap if the two countries would agree to provide the country with vaccines, which would be used to vaccinate Filipino healthcare workers who were repatriated and those going abroad. “We are considering the request to lift the deployment cap, subject to agreement,” she remarked.

After the Philippine government’s organized effort to export healthcare labor to the United States after WWII, countries aside from the United States have also relied on the Philippines to meet their demand for healthcare workers in response to their aging populations. 

This export of the healthcare workforce has also become vital to the Philippine economy as the remittances from the workers alone account for 11 percent of the country’s GDP. However, DOLE revealed that more than 570,000 overseas Filipino healthcare workers were displaced by the pandemic.

Visperas explained that it is critical for the country to secure vaccines for overseas Filipino healthcare workers, as vaccination is becoming a requirement for international migration.

However, exchange of medical workers in return for vaccines provoked criticism from some advocacy groups. “We are disgusted on how nurses and healthcare workers are being treated by the government as commodities or export products,” Jocelyn Andamo, secretary general of the Filipino Nurses United, expressed.

Despite the importance of overseas Filipino healthcare workers for all three countries, British Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce declined the offer on February 24. “We’ve got no plans to link the vaccines with those conversations around the recruitment of nurses,” he expressed. He added that Britain will distribute surplus vaccines in a fair and equitable way following the guidance of the WHO.