TO raise the number of medical professionals to attend to sick patients amid the pandemic, Philippine Red Cross Chairman and CEO Sen. Richard J. Gordon is urging the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to allow the conduct of licensure examinations for doctors and nurses during the period of community quarantine.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a tremendous strain on the country’s health-care system, we need more doctors, nurses, we need them as fast as we can get them. People die because they do not get help fast enough,” Gordon urged.
The PRC chairman and senator also recommended allowing the examinees to work in health-care facilities to care for Covid-19 patients on a limited basis and supervised by licensed health-care professionals, pending the release of their results.
It may be recalled that Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the number of applicants to the Department of Health’s hiring program remains low. She said that they are hoping that the exams be moved to an earlier schedule.
Due to the pandemic, the Professional Regulation Commission announced that the May 2021 nursing licensure exams had been rescheduled to November.