PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. backed the provision of scholarship for nurses and other medical-related workers.

The President said that those who will apply for the scholarship will be required to render service to the public.

“Lahat, nurses and hinahanap… 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 during a meeting with representatives of the healthcare cluster of the Private Sector Advisory Council.

Department of Health Officer-in-Charge 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.

Although it will take two to three years for the program to start paying off, the DOH official expressed hope that more nurses will be produced.

“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.