MANILA (Kyodo) Even as the Philippines strives to get Japan to allow in Filipino health-care workers under a free-trade agreement now under negotiation, the country itself could be moving rapidly toward a crisis in which patients suffer as health-care professionals move abroad.
Under the FTA talks that began earlier this month, Manila is looking to get Japan to allow Filipino nurses and caregivers to work freely in Japan, even though medical professionals are already packing their bags in record numbers for the United States, Britain and other countries where pay and working conditions are often better, industry experts warn.
"We are really on our way (to a medical crisis)," said Ruth Padilla, president of the Philippine Nurses Association. "In fact, we are already suffering in the delivery of health services especially in the rural areas, so much so that even doctors now are taking up nursing because they want to leave the country."