Nurses in private hospitals admitting coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients in Cebu City will each get a P10,000-monthly incentive from the city government and a P2-million life insurance from San Miguel Corporation, Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu has announced.
Cimatu met with the nine private hospital operators to boost their morale following reports that many of the medical frontliners are now exhausted because of the spike in COVID-19 cases in the city.
“The city government will shoulder the P10,000-incentive for each the private hospital nurses on top of their P15,000-salary.”
The environment chief said Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella has assured during their meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) that the city government will shoulder the P10,000 incentive for each the private hospital nurses on top of their P15,000 salary.
“As far as the morale is concerned, I asked from our regional director of DOH (Department of Health) how much is a newly hired nurse receiving in government hospitals. He said P28,000 per month. I asked the private hospitals here how much (they receive), they said P15,000 a month. So, medyo mataas and (seemingly high is the) discrepancy. And this is one of the reasons why our nurses in the private hospitals ay medyo hindi naman nagtatampo pero malungkot siyempre pare-pareho naman ginagawa namin (they seemed to be not grumbling but they are sad because we do the same job),” the environment head said during a briefing.
Apart from the incentives, he also promised to send more N95 masks to the medical frontliners in private hospitals.
“I was informed by deputy implementer in Cebu, General (Melquiades) Feliciano that based on the report coming from IATF chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., that Mr. Ramon Ang of San Miguel Corp. is giving life insurance for all 5,000 workers in the hospitals worth P2 million each,” Cimatu said.
“The offer of Ang is a welcome incentive for those who are working in the hospitals.”
He described the offer of Ang as a “welcome incentive for those who are working in the hospitals”.
Cimatu also said there is currently an availability of 569 beds and 77 intensive care unit (ICU) beds in all nine private hospitals.
“This is still crucial or critical. For the moment, we are looking (for) some possible increase in case our private and public hospitals will be overwhelmed if madagdagan pa (more) cases (will emerge),” he said.