FILIPINO health-care workers (HCWs) bound for the United Kingdom (UK) will soon get better protection under a new bilateral agreement to be signed by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III will meet with British Minister for Asia Amanda Milling on Friday to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
“Generally, this will of course cover the benefits to provide further protection of our health-care workers, especially nurses and other health-care professionals that the Philippines have been deploying and will deploy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain,” Labor spokesperson Rolly Francia said in an online press briefing last Monday.
The MOU was supposed to be signed last month with Bello going to the UK, but was postponed when some labor officials were exposed to Covid-19 infection.
The accord will be signed after the government earlier exempted the UK from the deployment cap for HCWs.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) imposed the deployment cap to ensure the country will have a sufficient pool of HCWs for the country’s Covid-19 response.
As of Monday, POEA Administrator Bernard P. Olalia said less than 500 of the 6,500 slots in the deployment cap remain available.
In another matter, Francia said Bello is no longer considering imposing a temporary deployment cap to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
This, after the two remaining OFWs employed by an allegedly abusive former Saudi general were finally turned over to the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO).
He said the two OFWs will soon be repatriated to be with their families.
Bello threatened last week to stop the deployment of OFWs due to the delayed turnover of the two domestic workers.