The critical assessment of the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers.

Abstract

This undergraduate thesis entitled The Critical Assessment of the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers: The Philippine General Hospital Experience explores on the current plight of the health workforce of the country’s premier public hospital amidst the passage of the Republic Act 7305 that ostensibly aimed to comprehensively address policy issues on salaries, compensations, benefits and privileges of public health workers. This health law had provisions for salaries, hazard allowance, subsistence allowance, longevity pay, laundry allowance, housing allowance, free medical examination, hospitalization and immunization, compensation of injuries, additional compensation for additional services rendered, and opportunities for development. Through a field work conducted at the Philippine General Hospital, a survey which employed an accidental sampling method among its fifty respondents has concluded some major findings: (1) Government agencies and government regulations provide little protection to health workers. (2) Health workers continue to suffer from overwork because of understaffing and inadequate salaries and benefits. (3) Given the underlying government neglect of health as a social service and privatization, the country’s health system allocates this stock of health workers principally according to market forces. (4) Despite the passing of the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers, health professionals in the country’s premier public hospital continue to perform in inhumane working conditions and low wage which contribute to their poor living standards.