Cebu Capitol to hire doctors as JO workers after manning agency yields no applicants

Cebu Provincial Capitol

CEBU CITY, Philippines — In order to meet the needed number of doctors for the four provincial and 12 district hospitals operated by the Cebu provincial government,  medical doctors will no longer be included in the Capitol’s outsourcing of personnel from manpower provider LServ  Corp.

Dr. Sheila Faciol, head of the Public Health Operations Division of the Provincial Health Office (PHO), said they needed to make another arrangement in the hiring doctors in order to fill up the positions needed to meet the requirement for a level 2 hospital.

The provincial hospitals in Balamban and the cities of Bogo, Carcar, and Danao are all categorized as level 1 hospitals that can only perform minor surgical procedures.

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia earlier said she wanted the four provincial hospitals to be upgraded to a level 2 classification so these will already have intensive care units (ICUs).

Although the budgetary requirement for a level 2 operation of these hospitals have been included in the province’s 2020 budget, Faciol said they had difficulty in filling in the slots for ten general practitioners and ten specialists using the outsourcing hiring scheme.

Last October 10, 2019, Capitol’s manpower provider Lserv Corporation continued to post job openings for doctors and specialists for the hospitals. The manpower provider, under its contract with the province, was supposed to fill up all medical positions needed by these hospitals by October 1 yet, but it did not receive a single application for medical doctors, more so from specialists.

Faciol said they are now processing the application of doctors for the four provincial hospitals after Garcia recently approved that they will be excluded in the outsourcing scheme.

“Job order na sila nato diri sa Capitol. Mao man ni atong gihangyo gyud ni gov kay katong pag LServ wala man gyuy ni-apply nga doctor kay degrading man pod gyud nga agency ang doctor,” Faciol said on Thursday, January 2, 2020.

(They are now categorized as job order workers of the province. This was what we requested from the governor because when it was a hiring done under LServ, not a single doctor applied because they found it degrading that they will be hired by a manning agency.)

Faciol added that under the job order (JO) arrangement, the medical specialists will be receiving salary equivalent to Salary Grade 22 or over P70,000 a month while general practitioners will receive compensation under Salary Grade 20 or over P56,000.

On LServ’s earlier offer, medical specialists will earn P45,000 to P50,000 a month while general practitioners will get P40,000 to P45,000.

LServ, a Manila-based agency, signed a P258-million contract with Capitol in September 2019 for the supply of over 800 medical and clerical personnel to the provincial and district hospitals and the offices at the Capitol.

In a separate interview, Garcia said the exemption only applies for doctors and the hiring of nurses and other personnel for Capitol and the hospitals will continue under LServ./elb