MANILA, Philippines — “We are not producing nurses just to send them abroad. We want them to stay and take care of our people.”

Senator Richard Gordon said this on Monday as he called on the government to immediately act on a recent Supreme Court decision that the minimum base pay of entry-level nurses should not be lower than Salary Grade 15.

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READ: SC says nurses entitled to P30,000 basic pay

Salary Grade 15 is equivalent to not less than P30,000.

The senator, likewise, underscored the significance of Filipino nurses in the primary health care system of the country.

“We need to give them the salary that they deserve and what has been authorized by the law,” he said in a statement.

“Our nurses are overworked but underpaid. I hope our government will directly act on this by immediately implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling pertaining to their salary,” he added.

Gordon pointed out that if the nurses would get fair compensations, “they will no longer be forced to leave the country and work abroad,” while the unemployment and contractualization problems in the nursing profession would likewise be addressed.

The senator noted that according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA), there are already 92,277 nurses who left the country since 2012,

This makes the Philippines the highest importer of nurses worldwide, he added.

“We need to keep our nurses because they are so important to public health. They are at the forefront. Let us not make them second class citizens,” Gordon said.

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