This story is part of Faces of 2020, a series of profiles about people whose stories of loss and survival embody the year 2020.

Karen Faurillo has spent the better half of the last 12 years as a lifeline for patients at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH).

She is a medical social worker, and that means she helps solve one of the hospital’s biggest problems: making sure there is enough money to fund the costly medicines and tests that any of its 800,000 patients, nearly 640,000 of whom are indigent, may need. 

For the country’s largest public hospital, the task is mammoth, even without a pandemic. This has made Karen adept at navigating the government system for the thousands of pesos patients will use, whether it’s sourced from millions donated by charity groups, earned from players at casinos dotting Pasay City, or drawn from lotto tickets purchased along alleys. 

For all that expertise, though, Karen has found herself on the opposite side of a conversation. Aside from finding the funding to help patients pay for their treatments, she’s had to demand that government give what they promised frontline health workers like her – special risk allowance and COVID-19 hazard pay. 

Nearly 9 months since the pandemic started and 6 months since the government eased out of an enhanced community quarantine, Karen, who is president of the All UP (University of the Philippines) Workers Union’s Manila chapter, said PGH’s health workers have not received this. 

“Noong lumabas itong order and nakabatas naman siya sa Bayanihan Act, so totoo…ang biro nga sa amin dito na wala pang natanggap ‘yung PGH health workers na may kinalaman sa COVID,” Karen said, as she prepared the signs and materials she and her co-workers needed for their Black Friday protest. 

(When this order came out and it’s listed under the Bayanihan Act, the truth is…the joke among us here is that PGH health workers haven’t received anything yet that’s related to COVID.) 

Connecting patients in a time of quarantine

Karen and her colleagues were not the immediate faces that people recognized as “heroes” when a new coronavirus pandemic made inroads in the capital city of the Philippines. She did not need to don a personal protective suit for over 8 hours in COVID-19 designated wards or wear layers of masks that stifled what little air flowed between its small creases. 

Yet when the Duterte government called on PGH to serve as a COVID-19 referral center, Karen stepped up. She reported to the hospital every day for work and soon after, she was assisting patients left anxious and alone as their bodies struggled to fight off the virus. 

Aside from handling the regular functions of the medical social services, Karen was among those who ran the hospital’s “Tele-Kumusta” program, where COVID-19 patients confined to the wards connected with their families through roving laptops placed on carts.

“It (pandemic) tested our competence as social workers and also our values since we’re providing patients not just relief from medical or physical problems but…ensure that they feel cared for, had choices, and their worth and dignity were upheld,” Karen told an online audience during a research forum in November.

The work was essential, she said, as it had motivated patients to comply with their treatment and allowed them to hope by seeing their families and loved ones. It also carried its risks.

In July, when the country was in the thick of a surge in COVID-19 infections, Karen wound up hospitalized for the disease.

She’s okay now, she assured with a laugh, adding there were other things that keep her occupied. 

Health workers sound alarm

In the months since then, the All UP Workers’ Union (Manila chapter) wrote to senators to hear their plea and held several more protest actions that would eventually force officials to listen. More than frustration, Karen said she and her fellow health workers were hurt over what seemed like the government dragging its feet.

“’Yung hindi pagpopondo, ‘yung delay ng pagbibigay, para sa amin alam mo isa na siyang pagbabalewala doon sa aming kontribusyon sa pagtutok sa COVID-19…. Pumasok ka at malinaw na, may support man ‘yan, ay nakatuon po sa pagseserbisyo ng COVID patient. So sa amin, ang ganoon, kasama ka sa trabaho pero sa pangako hindi ka kasama? Parang hindi naman namin matanggap ‘yun,” she said. 

(Not being able to fund it, the delay in releasing it, for us this feels like our contribution in the fight against COVID-19 is taken for granted….. You had to show up and it’s clear you were there to support and provide service to COVID patients. So for us, it’s as though you’re part of the work but need to work but when it comes to what’s promised, you’re out? We can’t accept that.) 

The hospital’s administration, the Department of Health, and the UP system later did listen.

PGH Director Gerardo Legaspi said the hospital has been assured that it would have funds to distribute for its health workers’ COVID-19 hazard pay and special risk allowance. 

Multiple calamities

Karen said she planned to use the money she got to help rebuild her family’s home in the Bicol region, one of the many which were destroyed by Super Typhoon Rolly (Goni) and Typhoon Ulysses (Vamco). 

But pandemic or not, Karen wanted the government to know that beyond additional compensation, health workers simply asked that their work be respected.

“Hindi na lang siya usapang sikmura, kung ‘di yung pagkatao, yung dignidad ng trabaho (This is not just a gut issue, but the humanity and dignity of our work),” she said. – Rappler.com