To create employment opportunities for nurses and other healthcare workers in the Philippines, the Philippine government will expand its “Doctors to the Barrio” program. Reports say that the government will allot a budget of Php1.7 billion for this project that is expected to provide jobs to 13,000 medical workers in the country.

Arnel Ty, Representative of the LPG Marketers Association party-list said in a statement, “The enlarged ‘Doctors to the Barrio’ program will mobilize 200 physicians, 12,000 nurses, and 1,000 midwives to improve healthcare in underserved communities,"

He also said that the budget to be used for this program is stated in the proposed P1.816-trillion General Appropriations Act of 2012.

The party-list representative authored House Bill 4582 which aims to create a plan to solve the problem of unemployment in the country.

The Doctors for the Barrio program will benefit nurses and other healthcare professionals because aside from providing short term jobs, it also equipped them with traing and work experience that they need to increase yther cmpertievness.

Using a data from the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC), Ty said that an estimate of 290,000 nurses arte currently unemployed

Under the ‘Doctors to the Barrio’ program, the nurses would assist in giving 2.6 million children vaccinations against tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, and rotavirus.

Ty added that the services of nurses would also be needed in the implementation of anti-tuberculosis program thru the Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS). They would also help immunize 1.2 million senior citizens against flu and pneumonia.

He said, “In the rural areas and even in city slums, many indigent mothers still give birth at home without the benefit of trained attendants. This is why we are still losing so many mothers to childbirth-related complications."