The (under)valued: Experiences of Philippine Health Professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Many health professionals globally have long-standing vulnerabilities that the pandemic crisis has revealed, leading to infections and deaths within their ranks. Comprising the majority or 59% of the total health professionals in the country, nurses play a vital role in the Philippine health care system, manifested by their complete tasks and responsibilities. Nurses mostly retired, resigned, and migrated due to unfair wages and unpaid benefits—resulting in a nursing crisis. This study aims to view the practical experiences of healthcare professionals not as a pandemic issue but as a justice issue. Six Themes emerged from the study: psychological distress, high workload, lack of medical supplies, financial distress, inadequate pandemic response exacerbating the long-term plights of the health sector, and facilitated collective action. The study concluded that the root cause of the long-term predicaments of the health sector is the persistent misallocation of the budget for health, leading to a lack of hospital supplies, understaffing, and underpaying of health professionals. The COVID-19 pandemic and the progressive character of neoliberal policies have highlighted the paradox of nursing staff facing extreme precarity in the healthcare workforce rather than better working circumstances. Nurses feel the contradiction between the comprehensiveness of societal expectations of their work and the institutional barriers that prohibit them from providing maximal health services. Thus, the researcher recommends upholding a comprehensive nursing law that explicitly aims for health professionals' welfare and stimulates an inclusive policy-making process on health.