Health chief fires back at critics

Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez issued a counterattack on critics who said the medical tests for foreign workers were in fact veiled attempt at raising money for the government.

“All those accusations of certain people about our way of trying to make money for the government are just hogwash. It really bothers me to hear leaders supposedly of certain sectors in the community telling us that it’s our way of making money for the government. That money never came to the Department of Public Health,” Villagomez said.

“We’re not here to make money. I think if anything — just $2 or $3 went to the department for processing and moving things around,” he added.

The comments were obviously directed to the businesspeople, who had complained about the fees involved in the tests.

Villagomez said the tests for tuberculosis and sex-related diseases were done by private clinics, not by the government hospital. He said the $20 charged for health certificates was used to process documents.

The health department began the tests in February, after a protracted negotiation with business leaders.

Health officials went ahead with the tests despite concerns that they might be discriminatory because they cover only the foreign workers.

The reasoning given had been that foreign workers are potential carriers of communicable diseases since many of them come from countries with high rate of tuberculosis.

Fees were to be borne by the employers.

Recently, health officials and the businesspeople came to a head again over a new proposal to medically screen food handlers.

Critics said with the economy turning sour, the plan is clearly ill-timed.

But the health department was unshaken by the opposition, saying it has no plans of abandoning the plan.

“They are making an issue about the food handlers’ test. The test for food handlers is obviously more intensive because of the nature of what they are doing. We’re doing this to ensure a healthy community. Again, its proceeds will not go to the Department of Public Health,” Villagomez said.

Villagomez apparently also is not swayed by a ruling from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the discriminatory nature of the tests.

The commission recently ordered a job reinstatement for an employee who, after being terminated in a cost-cutting program, used the tests to support a labor complaint, alleging bias for singling out foreign workers to be tested.