“One is the specific provision aligning the salary of our [public] nurses with salary grade 15 [with their counterparts] in the private sector,” he said. Another is improving nurses’ working conditions which has been a perennial problem in both private and public medical facilities. Under Department of Health (DOH) guidelines, the ideal nurse-to-patient ratio is 1:12 although global standards set it at 1:4. He said that unlicensed nurses may get the same pay rate as licensed nurses in an entry-level post, which is Salary Grade15, or equivalent to P36,619 per month. “They could be a source for the human resources for health,” he added, referring to the DOH deployment and training programme.
