Several weeks ago, President Marcos Jr. appealed to health workers, most especially nurses and doctors, to stay in the country and serve our people and their growing healthcare needs. This plea is not entirely new. We’ve heard this several times from many politicians in the past. What is also not new are the conditions that push our nurses away: inadequate compensation, lack of security, and unsafe work environments.

What is new is where nurses are going. More nurses are now leaving hospital work, not just for overseas nursing jobs, but for non-traditional roles. They are now in home care, working as virtual assistants, handling BPO health accounts, and even for foreign-based firms, where they work remotely from the Philippines. These non-traditional jobs, while some are still considered part of the care economy, provide better pay and flexibility. However, they expose our nurses to many risks. Some do not offer an employer-employee relationship or provide limited or no social protection at all. Some are being classified as “consultants” without any benefits.

We have seen this story before. Domestic workers (aka kasambahays) were once treated as outside the bounds of the formal economy, but not until the Kasambahay Law began to recognize their rights to contracts, fair pay, and social protections and benefits. Therefore, I suppose, we can do the same for nurses in emerging, non-traditional nursing roles.

As the Philippine Nurses Association celebrates its 103rd anniversary this September, let us give nurses more compelling reasons to stay. I call on our leaders and policymakers to move beyond appeals to loyalty and patriotism. Nurses and other workers in the care economy need legislation that will redefine who counts as a “worker.” Regardless of their employment arrangement, they need social protection to close the widening gap between traditional and non-traditional care jobs. Otherwise, we risk losing more nurses not only due to migration but also to a fragmented labor system that continues to fail to value them where they truly are.