If there is any silver lining from this pandemic, it is that the general population has come to realise the true value of hospital medical staff.
For it is their sacrifices that have kept most of us safe and well in these challenging two years. So, naturally, when the plight of government health contract workers was raised, they received the people's sympathy, and the Health Ministry received the people's rage.
Thanks to the pandemic, the long-fought battle to be heard has finally paid off when the cabinet this week decided to create 8,686 permanent positions for medical, dental and pharmacy officers over the next three years, beginning this June.
And though these positions will not be able to cover all the contract workers, it is far better than the 789 positions that had been given out in the last six years. Hopefully, this measure will provide a glimmer of assurance to government health contract workers to continue serving in the public health sector.
Have a thought, though, for the poor contract hospital support workers who don't have professional degrees, but whose services are also crucial to the healthcare system even before the pandemic. They are quietly present in hospital wards, corridors and toilets, and are seen, but not noticed.
If the government has been unfair to contract doctors, it is nothing compared with the suffering of hospital cleaners.
Ever since contract hospital workers and ancillary workers were removed from the civil service and parked under concessionaires in 1997, they have been exploited by contracts that shortchange them at every turn.
The National Union of Workers in Hospital Support and Allied Services (Nuhwas) claims that cleaners are kept at the minimum wage, with no salary increases despite many having more than a decade's service. The union claims that whenever companies change hands, new contracts are drawn up and service terms start anew; workers thus lose their seniority and are considered "new" workers even though they have been doing the same job in the same hospital for many years.
They have also been overlooked in the government's handing out of pandemic allowances. The union thus wants its workers to be reinstated into the civil service, so that they will receive a fairer deal.
In a meeting between the union and the health minister this week, the minister promised to talk to the concession companies. It is heartening that the minister acknowledged that "even though they are workers under concession companies, those companies receive concessions from the Health Ministry. Therefore, their welfare is also our responsibility at the ministry".
The minister raises a significant point. Whatever the reason for outsourcing certain government services in the 90s, it should never be used as an excuse to divest or absolve the government of its responsibility to ensure the welfare and rights of workers.
Outsourcing should not be used to bypass an employer's responsibilities. Primary or originating employers must require their subcontractors to observe a decent level of workers' rights and blacklist them if they don't.
At the same time, the Human Resources Ministry should look at the outsourcing industry and ensure that it isn't used as a means to exploit workers.
People who do permanent work should not be treated as temporary staff, hired through contracts ad infinitum. That is just a body-shop scam and the law ought to protect against it.