Better opportunities awaits Filipino nurses and doctors abroad that almost all of them wants to go out of the country leaving the Philippines with the threat of brain drain.

As a remedy for the exodus of healthcare professionals, Akbayan party-list Representatives Risa Hontiveros and Walden Bello proposed a new bill that would train barangay volunteers as nurses and doctors.

House Bill 6536 which was authored by the two lawmakers aims to set up “Bibong BHW Education and Training Program” which would train barangay health workers not just as midwives and physical therapists but also as doctors and nurses.

The proposed bill cited that there are more than 1.3 million front line workers all over the Philippinesso they can be the solution the country needs to address the crisis in the Philippine health system.

In a span of three years, 200 hospitals have already closed down while 800 more were partially closed because we lack doctors and nurses.

The bill states, “That the Philippine health sector is experiencing a brain drain is no hidden fact. Between 1994 and 2003 alone around 85,000 Filipino nurses went abroad, while 3,000 doctors left the country as nurses from 2000 to 2005 and an additional 3,000 enrolled in nursing schools in 2006.”

As compared to the proposal of, Health Secretary, Francisco Duque III, to recruit foreign health professionals that would replace the 3,000 physicians who left from 2000-2005, Hontiveros said that training local health volunteers is a better alternative.

Hontiveros added that the proposed program is not only advantageously connected with other government bills for health reform, it is also appropriate and imperative because of the outbreak of the A(H1N1) virus.

She said, “Kapag nahaharap sa pandemic, mas-tumitindi ang sitwasyon dahil sa phenomenon ng labor migration ng health professionals.”

The curriculum for the Bibong BHW Program will be based on the “step ladder” training program of the University of the Philippines.

First step would include a compulsory basic training on community health care delivery which would be followed by an extensive training on community health care. In the second step, trainees can already choose a specialization, either midwifery, occupational therapy, pharmacology and so on. At the third step, trainees are assumed to be ready to take an examination to be a licensed nurse.

The entire program would run for 15 months and volunteers which have completed the training can already take the licensure examination for nurses.

In the fifth step, BHWs would have the opportunity to take a five-year program that would include Medicine courses. Those who will be able to complete the course will be allowed to take licensure exams for doctors.