A physician gets vaccinated against COVID-19 at Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Hospital. MindaNews file photo by ROMMEL REBOLLIDO
GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 30 July) – Job order nurses, doctors, and other workers at the city government-run Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Hospital (DJPRH) will get significant increases in their salaries next month.
Glenville Gonzalez, DJPRH department head, said they are currently finalizing the implementation effective Aug. 16 of the new salary scale for their job order employees.
He said it will specifically cover the city hospital’s nurses, medical specialists, medical officers, and medical technologists.
Gonzalez said they pushed for the upgrading of their basic salaries to provide them with proper compensation amid the continuing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
“We also want to address the big disparity between the salaries of our regular nurses and other hospital staff with those of our job order employees,” he said in a radio interview on Friday.
Gonzalez, who was called by the city council early this week to shed light on the reported resignations of the DJPRH personnel and other related concerns, said job order nurses currently receive a monthly salary of 17,099.
But it is way below the basic rate for permanent Nurse 1 positions, which increased to PHP35,575 last year, he said.
The official said the salary increase is aimed to prevent nurses from considering other employment options or offers and eventually resigning from the hospital.
He said their current rate was among the highest in the area for several years but better offers from other hospitals came out when the COVID-19 pandemic happened.
Since January, he admitted that some 25 job order nurses have already resigned for various reasons, among them the higher salary scale in other hospitals in the area.
DJPRH currently has a total of 97 job order nurses and over 30 under regular or permanent status.
Gonzalez said they requested the city’s human resource management and development office in September last year to review the salary scale of their job order workers and it eventually came out with proposed new rates.
He said City Mayor Ronnel Rivera approved the increase in December 2020 but it was not included in this year’s budget, prompting them to push for its funding and implementation next month.
Under the new salary scale, he said job order nurses will receive a basic salary of P26,192.10, increasing by over P9,000.
The salaries of medical specialists will increase from P40,603.86 to P46,064.04 while those for the Medical Officer III from P35,218.92 to P43,439, he said.
He said such rates exclude the mandatory benefits and incentives for medical and health care workers.
“We’re working on increasing the salaries of our other workers, including the pharmacy staff, in the next round of adjustments,” he added. (MindaNews)
