President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is mulling providing scholarships for nurses and other medical workers as many countries scramble to find healthcare professionals amid the challenges faced by hospitals and medical facilities.

On Thursday, Marcos met in Malacañang with the representatives of the healthcare cluster of the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC).

Marcos said that although the government can’t prevent nurses from leaving for high-paying jobs abroad, they must at least serve their country if they avail of the government scholarship program.

“Lahat, nurses. Naghahanap… Everybody that I talk to, especially from the States and from Europe… So the only thing is that the scholarship program, that you know, you can’t hold people back from a better life, from a better living…” the President said.

“But I think it’s fair that if you provide scholarship, that you expect that there are… mag-serbisyo muna sila ng ilang taon. Hindi babayaran ‘yung scholarship eh. They don’t need to pay that,” he added.

Meanwhile, Department of Health (DOH) Officer-in-Charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the DOH had started discussions with the deans of the University of the Philippines and other allied healthcare services for the government’s “ladderized” scholarship program.

Vergeire also told the President that the DOH had initial talks with the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) for exchange programs with other countries needing healthcare workers.

“So in turn we are going to propose that if we can provide them with these numbers that they need, they [would] provide us also, for example, scholarships for a number of our healthcare workers here,” Vergeire said, adding that graduates have to stay in the country for two years before they can be deployed abroad.