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Sen. Loren Legarda has joined colleague Jinggoy Estrada in pushing
for the construction of a new, modern and fully equipped medical
center for migrant Filipino workers and their dependents to
implement the constitutional mandate for the state to afford full
protection to labor, both local and overseas.
Under a new bill authored by Legarda, the
special hospital would be established by the Overseas Workers
Welfare Administration (OWWA).
As proposed by Legarda, the OWWA Migrant Workers
Hospital would provide comprehensive health-care services to all
migrant workers who are OWWA contributors, as well as their legal
dependents.
It would also supplement the existing package of
services under the Medical Care Program so as to include preventive,
promotive, diagnostic, curative and rehabilitative programs.
It would also conduct medical examinations to
ensure the physical and mental capabilities of all would-be overseas
contract workers duly covered by an approved job order.
Legarda is pushing for a hospital-based system
that would effectively monitor the condition of patients, and
generate relevant information in aid of policy formulation.
More than 3,000 Filipinos leave the country
every day to work abroad, according to the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration (POEA).
Legarda lamented that a growing number of
migrant workers, mostly women, return home “badly battered and
bruised,” and requiring adequate care, treatment and
rehabilitation in a suitable facility.
Under Senate Bill 938, a seven-member board of
directors would govern the OWWA Migrant Workers Hospital.
It would be composed of the Secretary of Labor
and Employment, Secretary of Health, Secretary of Social Welfare and
Development, the OWWA and POEA administrators, and one
representative each from land-based and sea-based migrant workers.
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