Barangay health workers, the weak link in the entire chain of health care delivery system, need increased financial help and insurance coverage.

This was the focus of the speech of Sen. Loren Legarda, chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee, before the National Confederation of Barangay Health Workers of the Philippines at the SM Megatrade Hall in Cebu City Saturday.

Legarda said her Senate Bill 1384 seeks an increase in the salary of barangay health workers to salary grade 10 (P14,641) a month and be given a mandatory Christmas bonus aside from the benefits granted to other barangay employees.

She also filed Senate Bill 1340 which seeks to grant compulsory coverage to accredited barangay health workers under the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).

At present, barangay health workers receive a monthly honorarium of only P1,000 a month.

“With the resurgence of different disease outbreaks that most often emerge in the remotest areas in the country or with every calamity that strikes us, our barangay health workers serve as the caretakers of the lowly Filipinos,’’ Legarda said.

Their importance in the entire chain of health care delivery is a great imperative now than ever with the dengue outbreak, she explained.

“Our health workers are undermined with regard to their meager honorarium and tough working conditions. Even with their relentless efforts in providing health care to our barangay folk who could not afford hospital fees, they are underpaid and not even provided with a health insurance program,’’ she said.

Legarda said she is recommending that all health workers and their dependents be enrolled in the NHIP for them to receive and avail of an adequate package of personal health services including emergency and transfer services, in-patient hospital care, out-patient care and other supplementary health benefits.

“Our barangay health workers are extremely vulnerable to health risks, as they are exposed to diseases they confront every day. It is indeed ironic that the frontliners of Philippine health care do not have enough means to protect their own,’’ she said.

“Due to this utter neglect of this crucial sector, many of them find other jobs or take refuge in foreign countries where they are properly compensated. We lose most of our health workers, which creates a shortage of hands on community health care service. Therefore, it is only just that they be honored fittingly and rightfully and be armed with and adequate healthy insurance program,’’ she said.

For 16 years, barangay health workers have been the country’s health information disseminators, the nurturers or expectant mothers and sick children, and the providers of genuine health care to the Filipino in the deepest nooks of the archipelago, she said.

“Our health workers serve as pillars, holding the nation’s health care delivery system. It will founder and falter at the grossroots without the inspired and dedicated work of our barangay health workers,’’ she added.