Press Release
October 23, 2007

Only improved job, economic conditions will stem
health workers' exodus -- Loren

Only improved employment and economic conditions here will stem the sustained migration of Filipino healthcare professionals, Sen. Loren Legarda said Monday.

"Amid rapid globalization, the only way we can really discourage our professionals and other highly skilled workers from seeking greener pasture overseas is by willfully enhancing their job conditions here," said Legarda, Senate economic affairs committee chair.

Government could start by freeing public sector-employed doctors and nurses, from the coverage of the highly restrictive Salary Standardization Law, Legarda said.

"But in the case of nurses, we really have a large annual surplus of practitioners. So maybe this is not much of problem. Just the same, we really have to improve their working conditions here," the senator added.

"We reckon that we will soon be producing up to 150,000 nursing graduates every year, at the rate students are entering nursing schools, and yet the Department of Health says only 2,000 of them are being absorbed by the economy -- by the private sector and the government," Legarda said.

As of June 2006, the country's more than 440 nursing schools reported a staggering total enrolment of 632,108 students.

Legarda was reacting to Health Secretary Francisco Duque's disclosure that up to 85 percent of the country's healthcare professionals are now working abroad. Duque warned that the continued migration of doctors and nurses, if left unchecked is bound to strain the country's healthcare system.

"If we look at India and other large labor-exporting countries, they are facing the same problem -- the threatened shortage of adequately skilled workers at home," Legarda pointed out.

"However, if we also look closer at India's most recent experience, its highly skilled migrant professionals such as engineers and other information technology workers are now returning home by the tens of thousands," Legarda added.

"This is because India 's economy has been expanding at 9.0 to 9.7 percent annually. And the promise of greater economic and self-advancement opportunities there has lured back skilled migrant workers," she said.

"Even money previously stashed by Indians overseas is flowing back into India in a big way, along with the surge of foreign investments," Legarda pointed out.

She added: "In a way, India 's brain drain is now being mitigated. In fact, over 70,000 migrant Indian engineers have gone home because of the promise of a better life, bringing with huge savings after years of work in U.S. companies. Now it is Silicon Valley that is complaining that it is fast losing first-rate Indian engineers."

According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, India's accelerated jobs growth, driven mainly by information technology-enabled services, has produced over 300 million middle-class consumers that, in turn, have buoyed domestic consumption. Robust consumption, in turn, has spurred growth access all Indian industries.

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