The SUN HK : Sanction urged for agencies that make OFWs undergo repeat medical tests for extra fee

Direct hires are the ones who often fall prey to the check-up scam

The leader of a big online organization of Filipino migrant workers in Hong Kong has hit out at what appears to be a prevalent practice of recruitment agencies in the Philippines to subject outbound domestic helpers to further medical check-ups, just so they could make them cough up more money.

Marites Palma, founder of Social Justice for Migrant Workers (SJMW), said this happened even to her earlier this year, when she was told that her first medical check-up showed she had an irregular heartbeat, so she needed to undergo another ECG (echo cardiogram).

Anxious as she was then just a few days away from her flight back to Hong Kong, Palma asked her agency if there was a way she could be certified as “fit to work” so she could leave. She was told she could just pay extra for a medical clearance. No repeat ECG was done on her.

Pindutin para sa detalye

Palma realized from sharing her story with other OFWs later that this has become quite common among departing OFWs lately, especially with those who are “direct hires”, or those who found their own employers.

Under Philippine regulations, even direct hires are required to go through recruitment agencies before they can be deployed abroad. But because the agencies in these cases do no more than handle the required paperwork, they are unable to charge employers as much as they do with workers they placed themselves, which is upwards of $12,000 per worker.

Fees for direct hire processing start at around $7,000 and because of the stricter enforcement of the “no placement fee” policy of the Philippine government, agencies who used to charge workers even more than this, have been coming up with new ploys to make up for the shortfall.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

“Parang ang lumalabas ay pinagkakakitaan ang mga OFW dahil hindi na sila mapagbayad nang malaki,” said Palma, who has been a domestic worker in Hong Kong for more than 20 years.

What’s worse, even cruel, according to her, is that the worker is made to worry needlessly about a pretend medical condition, all in pursuit of illicit financial gain.

Palma is calling for immediate crackdown on the agency malpractice

This was what happened to a Hong Kong-bound OFW who sought the help of The SUN and SJMW recently, after she was told her x-ray result showed she had “lower lobe pneumonitis”.

Shareena was distressed not so much by the diagnosis but of the big amount of money she had already spent moving to Manila from her hometown so she could follow up her job application. Now that she already has an employer waiting for her, she feared she would not be able to leave as scheduled in November.

“Nakaalis din po ba kayo kahit ganyan ang resulta ng medical ninyo? Naiiyak na ako kasi ang dami ko nang gastos dito sa Manila, tapos baka hindi ako ma fit to work,” said Shareena in a post put out by SJMW. (Were you able to leave even if you had this kind of a result from your medical check-up? I am almost in tears because I have already spent so much money here in Manila, but fear I will not be certified as ‘fit to work’).

Basahin ang detalye!

She was relieved when most of the OFWs who replied to her query told her that all she needed was to pay the clinic or the agency again so she could secure a medical clearance.

“Pera-pera lang yan,” (it’s all about money) said one, who added she was made to have a second x-ray the day before she was due to leave supposedly because something “suspicious” was found in her initial screening.

She immediately got the all-clear after this second test.

Another, Em Lee, said it’s a long-standing “modus” of agencies that even if the worker has no medical issues, they would still come up with an excuse to refer her to another clinic so they could extract more money.

The agencies and the clinics are in cahoots , she said, as they share in whatever extra money is squeezed from the worker who is only too willing to oblige, because of fear of losing the coveted job.

Em Lee said that in her case, she was told she needed to undergo further tests as she had a rare blood type, when she knew very well that this was not true, as she was O negative, the universal blood type. She paid up, anyway.

Another OFW shared that during the pre-departure test, a doctor told her she was pregnant. She raised hell because she was not sexually active at the time as her husband was also abroad for work. That left the doctor red-faced, according to her.

Many others shared experiences of being made to undergo a second, or even a third, check-up for extra fee, only to be told afterwards that there was really nothing wrong with them.

“Yung clinic ang may sakit, sakit sa bulsa,” said another, in an attempt to make light of the nefarious practice. (The clinic is the one that’s ill, ill for money).

But the illicit practice could result in something that is even more pernicious than faking an ailment to get a desperate would-be OFW to pay more money.

In the case of Cherry, a former OFW in Qatar and Hong Kong who hails from South Cotabato, it cost her more than just money or peace of mind, but also the job she had worked hard for months to get.

Shortly before she was to leave for Qatar last August, her agency told her she needed to undergo a CT scan for some irregularity that supposedly showed in her X-ray examination. Her agency assured her she need not worry about it since it was the employer who would foot the bill, so she relented.

But soon after the employer learned about this he flew into a rage, and cancelled Cherry's visa. The employer was angry that after waiting for too long, he still did not know when Cherry could be in Qatar.

By this time, Cherry had already spent Php30,000 on the application process, and despite doing odds in Manila she barely earned enough to pay for her daily expenses. She decided to just return to her family in Mindanao, her dream of going back to work abroad all forgotten for now.