Joy Adalia
By law, nurses working in government hospitals and facilities are entitled to a minimum base pay of Salary Grade 15 (SG-15), which amounts to Php24,887 per month. Did you know this law was supposed to be implemented in 2002, yet 12 years later, our nurses are still receiving low salaries – with many paying the hospitals for a chance to ‘volunteer’?
Carl E. Balita, a multi-awarded entrepreneur, is now rallying other nurses to join the ‘Nurses for Change Movement’ to make the government hear their voices. Nurses are encouraged to show their support to the movement by using the hashtag #Nurses4Change (variant: #NursesforChange).
On a rant posted on Facebook, Carl posted a copy of the letter from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) addressed to ANG NARS Partylist representative Leah S. Paquiz last May.
The DBM acknowledges the letter sent by Rep. Leah, also quoting the law which specifically mandates that nurses should get a minimum wage of SG-15 but insists that the government could not afford this because it will ‘‘further strain the government coffers’!
The budget department’s OIC Assistant Director Edgardo M. Macaranas said that upgrading even just the salaries of entry level nurses (Nurse I position) will require Php438,109,687 per year.
The department also believes that complying with the SG-15 will ‘distort the hierarchal relationships of medical, and allied positions, as well as other positions in the bureaucracy’. Of course, once they increase the salaries of entry level nurses, the higher positions will have to enjoy a corresponding increase in their wages as well – something the DBM insists the government’s coffers could not handle.
DBM: Nurses are receiving ‘equal pay for equal work’
In the letter, the DBM quotes a portion of the National Budget Circular No. 521, implemented in 2009, which specifically states that the minimum wage for entry level nurses in government hospitals should be increased from SG-10 to SG-11. This increase is supposed to meet the ‘equal pay for equal work’ truism.
Take note that the 2009 circular increases the nurses’ minimum wage from SG-10 to SG-11 yet the 2002 law specifically indicates that they should be receiving SG-15!
How much is SG-11? For the Step 1 entry level position, it is Php18,549; thus, the nurses are cheated of Php6,338 from their monthly salaries or at least Php76,056 every year!
Nurses in Black (NIB)
The Nurses for Change Movement urges nurses across the country to wear black on October 17, 2014 as a signal of protest against this injustice, dubbing the protest as NIB or ‘Nurses in Black’. The rationale for the black-colored protest is this: ‘…because in white, we care; …in black, we protest’.
Nurses are also invited to use this photo as their Facebook profile picture, in hopes that the movement will spread across the country.
Rallying the country’s nurses quite difficult, concedes Carl. In his Facebook rant, he mentioned how he was told that most nurses choose to stay away from movements similar to Nurses4Change but are simply ‘likers’. He hopes, though, that this will proved wrong and that the government would listen to their sentiments.
