Nurses in Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Memorial Hospital (DJPRMH) in General Santos are made to wear diapers due to an imposition of a no bathroom break policy to cut costs in personal protective equipment (PPE).

Nurses and healthcare workers’ (HCW) working conditions continue to worsen as COVID-19 cases skyrocket due to the Delta variant.

The Philippines’ total cases previously breached the 2-million mark earlier this month which brought an overwhelming upsurge of COVID-19 inpatients. According to the Department of Health’s latest data drop, the country tallies 2, 304, 192 total cases. 

As the country’s hospital capacities reach their maximum, HCWs bear the brunt of the government’s bungled pandemic response. 

Stories of patients dying before receiving hospital accommodation have rampantly spread online that the administration can no longer fool the country that it has done something good at all.

“Many of them said we were already the eighth or ninth hospital they tried, and if it were up to me, I really would have taken them in,” said Dr. Gio Pineda, in an interview with Al Jazeera. “But there really was no room left.”

The government has been known for imposing confusing lockdown hybrids with little to no difference among each other despite its irrational provisions such as curfews and inability to return home once curfew strikes. Aside from that, Duterte also remains stupidly steadfast in mandating the use of face shields despite experts’ comments on its redundancy and insignificance.

A group of HCWs also previously staged a protest in front of DOH last September 1 demanding the resignation of Health Secretary Francisco Duque and the immediate release of their long-overdue and hard-earned COVID-19 benefits.

Reports of numerous health care workers’ resignations have frequently surfaced as their working conditions become a death-defying battle in the face of a raging public health crisis with no clear, scientific, and humane response from the administration.

Nurses in Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Memorial Hospital (DJPRMH) in General Santos are made to wear diapers due to an imposition of a no bathroom break policy to cut costs in personal protective equipment (PPE). They are also made to run 12-hour shifts and are obliged to stay 12 days with a 7-day quarantine in the hospital before they are granted to go home.

The said hospital is down to 26 nurses, almost a half deficit from its 48 nurses months prior.

As poor working conditions endure in the time of COVID and as concrete responses to the pandemic remain distant, healthcare workers are forced to withstand the government’s disregard and are left with no choice but to seek a better work environment elsewhere.

Featured image courtesy of Rappler.