The Philippines swaps in exchange for Corona vaccines for medical personnel to work abroad

The exchange of medical personnel for the vaccine sparked a wave of widespread criticism.

EPA

The Philippines is seeking to barter Britain and Germany with cadres in the field of health care, in exchange for obtaining the "Covid-19" vaccine, at a time when it is in dire need of these human cadres.

On Monday, a senior labor official said that the country would allow more health care workers to work in the United Kingdom and Germany, if these two countries donated 600,000 doses of the "Covid-19" vaccine, which will be allocated to Filipino workers who may return to their jobs in the country. the outside.

The head of the International Affairs Office at the Department of Labor, Alice Vesperas, said that the Philippines will exempt Germany and the United Kingdom from the ceiling of 5,000 healthcare workers allowed to leave and work abroad, as the Philippines imposed a blanket ban on health professionals leaving last year.

The British Ministry of Health told «Reuters» that it is not interested in such a deal, and plans to share the surplus internationally later this year.

Philippine Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello recently claimed that he had never offered nurses in exchange for vaccines, after days of criticism of the proposal by lawmakers and civil society groups.

Last week, Bello said the two countries were negotiating with the Philippines to remove restrictions on Filipino nurses.

The Philippines is the only member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that has not yet formally administered the Covid-19 vaccine, despite being home to one of the worst outbreaks in Asia.

While the country has announced its desire to secure 148 million doses of vaccine - a number epidemiologists say would allow residents to obtain herd immunity - international drugmakers have postponed the deals while they wait for a compensation clause to pass that blocks lawsuits against the manufacturers.

In a briefing on February 22, Vesperas explained that the vaccines donated by the United Kingdom and Germany will be allocated to workers heading abroad, and said: “Many countries that employ Filipino workers expect to vaccinate them, because there may come a time when they are not allowed to enter these countries without it. ».

Many Filipino nurses abroad lost their lives during the epidemic in the United States. The largest nurses association in the country says that nearly a third of the nurses who died from the Corona virus are from the Philippines, although Filipino nurses make up only 4% of the nursing staff.

The United Philippine Nurses Association criticized advocating for the nurses in exchange for vaccines, and said in a statement: "We are disgusted that the government is treating us as commodities or export products."

The Migrante International Organization, a group advocating for Filipino workers abroad, described the plan as a "desperate step by the government of the Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, because it failed to protect the Filipino people from the emerging coronavirus crisis." The group said in a statement: "This is another stark example. On how Duterte's government strengthened the decades-long neoliberal policy of exploiting Filipino workers as commodity exports.

The

Philippines will exempt Germany and the United Kingdom from the ceiling of 5,000 healthcare workers who are allowed to leave and work abroad.

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