The Department of Health on Friday appealed to lawmakers to amend the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers to include both public and private hospitals in the country.

Health Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that this was to address the inequalities in terms of benefits of healthcare workers in private hospitals nationwide.

"Because if there are policies that are implemented, usually only public health workers get it based on our laws. But if we amend this to include both public and private, the private sector will also receive the same amount," Vergeire explained in a media briefing.

Likewise, she also pushed for the proposed measure seeing to standardize the salaries of medical workers, in a bid to prevent the exodus of health workers in the country.

"We are pushing a bill on salary standardization for human resources for health both for public and private, and both for the national and local health sectors so there will be no difference as to the salaries (of health workers)," Vergeire said.

She made the appeal after Jose de Grano, president of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc., expressed his concern over the exodus of health workers, which he said could affect the services of the country's healthcare system.

The Health official stressed that through the proposed measures, the "differentiation" of salaries between public and private will be scrapped.

"Whatever a healthcare worker will receive from the public sector, should also be given by the private sector according to the bill that we are seeking to be approved at Congress and the Senate," she added.