MANILA -- Nurses and other medical workers are leaving the Philippines at the rate of at least 15,000 a year for better-paying jobs abroad, threatening the country's health infrastructure, World Health Organization officials warned yesterday.

"It is a serious, serious situation," WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said, noting that even Filipino doctors abandon their practices and go back to medical schools to enrol in nursing courses. The number is more than that from any other country, with the United States, Britain and lately Australia the main destinations.

WHO country representative Jean Marc Olive warned that the exodus was expected to persist until 2015, with annual demand for medical workers in the United States and Europe estimated to be about 800,000.

"In the Philippines the shortage of nurses is starting to be felt, therefore it's a pressing issue that needs to be addressed, but not the quick fix solutions," Olive told a news conference. He urged the government to "look into the needs of the health workers" and adopt plans to convince them to stay.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque acknowledged the problem, estimating that 85 percent of the country's nurses have left the Philippines, where four in 10 people live on two dollars a day or less.

Medical workers started to go overseas in large numbers when the country's mass labor export program begun in the 1970s.

The temporary workers, along with Filipinos living permanently in wealthier countries, sent back a record $10.7 billion to their families in the Philippines through the formal banking system last year, the central bank said.

Duque said the government would support proposals to enact a law that would require fresh graduates from nursing and medical schools to stay in the country for between six months and one year before they are allowed to practice abroad.

He said the state-run lottery, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), has pledged to finance a scholarship program to put about 100 students through medical school every year.

The lottery has budgeted P252 million, enough for 6,000 students, he added. "The first batch will enter this June," Duque added.*AFP

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