UPDATE 1-More nurses allowed to leave as Philippines eases travel ban

* Philippines expands exemptions from travel ban
* Govt says 1,500 health workers to benefit
* Nurses demand total lifting of ban

(Recasts, adds reaction from nursing groups, workers)
By Karen Lema
MANILA, Sept 21 (Reuters) - More than a thousand Philippine
health workers will finally be allowed to take jobs abroad
following President Rodrigo Duterte decision to ease their
travel ban, but they are not celebrating yet and want a total
lifting of restrictions.
Thousands of health workers, who call themselves
"priso-nurses", had appealed to the government to let them take
jobs abroad, Reuters reported last week. The nurses say they
feel underpaid, under-appreciated and unprotected in the
Philippines. The government in April barred nurses, doctors and other
medical workers from leaving, saying they were needed to fight
the coronavirus crisis at home. The Philippines has Southeast
Asia's highest infection numbers, with 290,190 cases, of which
4,999 died.
Those Duterte exempted from the ban will now include any
workers with overseas contracts and documentation completed as
of Aug. 31, presidential spokesman Harry Roque told a media
briefing on Monday.
So far only those with contracts before March 8 have been
allowed to travel.
Among the 1,500 health workers expected to benefit from the
easing was nurse Jordan Jugo, 33, who has a job in Britain.
"My mother was so happy she was crying when I called her to
share the news," Jugo told Reuters. "But our battle is not yet
over because we demand for the total lifting."
Filipino health workers are on the front lines of the
pandemic at hospitals in the United States, Europe and the
Middle East as well as at home.
The pandemic has highlighted the plight of nurses in the
Philippines, where the healthcare system is already
short-handed. In Germany there are 430 doctors and nurses per
10,000 people. In the Philippines, there are 65.
Maristela Abenojar, president of the Filipino Nurses United
(FNU), said the easing was only a "partial victory".
Abenojar called for the ban to be removed and for salaries
of all nurses in the country to be raised.
"That is the only way to entice more nurses to stay," she
told Reuters.

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INSIGHT-Pandemic "hero" Filipino nurses struggle to leave home
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