It took nearly two decades before nurses working in the Philippines’ public hospitals and government agencies got the pay hike that a law had provided, and it came amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Secretary of Budget and Management Wendel Avisado on Friday issued Budget Circular No 2020-4, which finally implemented Section 32 of Republic Act No 9173, or the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, which gave nurses a minimum monthly base pay of Salary Grade (SG) 15 amounting to between 32,053 and 34,801 pesos ($649 and $705) in state-run health institutions.

Prior to this circular, entry-level government nurses were paid SG 11 rates, or 22,316-24,391 pesos per month, depending on the salary step, under the Salary Standardisation Law (SSL) 5 which raised the pay of civilian government personnel from January 1 this year.

Budget assistant secretary Rolando Toledo said 6,627 currently in nurse 1 positions in different government agencies will benefit from the salary upgrade.

Camille Ayap, 30, who started working as a contractual nurse at a public hospital in Nueva Ecija province in January last year, expected to be among them.

She told Philippine Daily Inquirer: “I’m really happy and thankful. It’s not bad, considering that the government’s budget is also limited, and we have this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic happening.”

The bigger pay “will really help me and my family”, the mother to a 9-year-old daughter said.

Ayap took and passed the nursing board examination only last year, 10 years after graduation as she had to take care of her growing child.

Her “job order” position paid a measly 505 pesos per day, or 11,000 pesos a month, and she didn’t have benefits like those enjoyed by tenured nurses.

The plight of overworked and underpaid nurses in the Philippines is again in the spotlight as the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps across the country.

Among the first casualties of the new coronavirus disease were health workers, many of them nurses.

In Cebu City, where a surge in Covid-19 cases was reported last month, many overworked and demoralised nurses complained of lack of government and private sector support and threatened to leave their jobs.

In Manila, the local chapter of Filipino Nurses United at the government-run San Lazaro Hospital last week reported that medical front-liners, including nurses, were suffering from “physical, emotional and mental” stress.

It said 40 of San Lazaro’s personnel had tested positive for the coronavirus.

The nurses cited the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and complained of being instructed to reuse PPEs even after 12-hour shifts and for not being given sufficient support in terms of transportation, accommodation and stress debriefing.

The hospital management acknowledged the 40 infections and said the complaints had all been addressed.

Avisado said the Department of Budget of Management (DBM) circular “shall take effect immediately” and those in nurse 1 positions will now start to get SG 15 salaries.

The upgrading of the pay grade was “effective not earlier than January 1, 2020”, according to the circular.

Avisado and other DBM officials did not immediately reply when asked whether the nurses could get back pay.

A study by the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) in 2017 showed that there were 31,396 nurses in 800 public hospitals that year. In addition, 23,547 worked at various community health centres and another 35,365 were employed in 1,172 private hospitals, the PNA said.

On June 17, Ang Nars party list, which had petitioned for the implementation of Section 32 of RA 9173, said in a statement that the Supreme Court released the finality of judgment of its ruling last year upholding its validity.

Then Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who authored the ruling, said Section 32 of RA 9173 was valid, but it did not grant Ang Nars’ petition to order its implementation because enforcing the minimum salary “would require a law passed by Congress providing the necessary funds for it”.

PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK