Of medical workers

The festive mood of the Yuletide Season brought so much excitement to almost everybody since majority of the restrictions from the pandemic years were already lifted and of course majority of the people were already vaccinated.

Not everybody though is happy or at least were given even just the opportunity to be happy in the context of having something to spend for the season.

Towards Christmas, a social media post of a medical staff from Western Visayas Sanitarium in Sta. Barbara caught the attention of the public. It speaks of “Salaries have been delayed for decades (every 3 months gaabot) but until now, two days before Christmas eve, our November salaries haven’t been given yet. Allowances that have been promised to us haven’t seen the light of day and no one has been giving statements about those, too.”

An entirely different social media post came in after from the Iloilo Provincial Health Office (IPHO) under the leadership of Dr. Ma. Socorro Quinon providing an update on the payment of OCA or One Covid-19 Allowance to its medical frontliners. The post suddenly generated too much negative reactions that the page admin of PHO immediately turned-off the comment button. Days earlier, the official page of the Iloilo Information Office, Balita Halin sa Kapitolyo, ran a story explaining the failure of IPHO to release the OCAs of its frontliners and passing the blame to the Department of Health (DOH). One thing is clear and certain though, while almost all medical frontliners from Iloilo have already received their OCA, those from IPHO have not and reading on the comments the problem is with the leadership of the office.

In both cases, the poor and underpaid medical workers working in government health institutions are miserably left unattended and their welfare is simply the least in terms of priority.

True enough, the Western Visayas Sanitarium’s problem has been there for decades. This paper managed to make a report on the delays back then and today the problem lingers and perhaps have worsened. The problem? It’s a basketball of explanation from the office of the Sanitarium head and the accountant. Why can’t DOH simply relieve the hospital head and the accountant? Not even the well-mannered Rep. Mike Gorriceta, 2nd District of Iloilo can make a louder voice on the lingering problem. Even Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. has not made any intervention. Is somebody afraid of someone?

In the case of IPHO, its head of office Dr. Quinon, an amiable and kind-hearted lady who is recipient to numerous awards for meritorious service and programs deplorably failed in ensuring that the OCAs of her medical workers are given on time. She would simply keep her silence when in fact the plain and simple problem is better representation and efficient processing of the needed requirements by the administrative section of her office. Her medical workers risked their lives during the height of the pandemic and when they started airing their grievances on the severely delayed releasing of their benefits the most Dr. Quinon did was to post a quote “You get what you tolerate…”

Governor Defensor Jr. should intervene now. The awards received by Dr. Quinon and the IPHO were dwarfed by this insensitive and criminal neglect of her medical workers. Good governance is about inclusivity and never about censure especially when the people who worked hard and sacrificed a lot in the last pandemic have started talking about the abandonment they have received from IPHO and Quinon.