Hospital caregivers: In Kota Kinabalu, migrants have been taking care of locals for decades

KOTA KINABALU, March 13 ― For almost three decades now, Viola ― a Filipina from a small village in Zamboanga province in Southern Philippines ― has lived in Sabah; under the radar but not exactly “invisible.”

Viola works at hospitals here, providing round-the-clock care for patients whose families need help taking care of them.

“I did not have any qualifications when I came here, but I learnt from the nurses and doctors. You could say I’m good at what I do and built a career over the years,” she said.

 She is among a large number of Filipino “freelance” caregivers who possess no valid working passes or documents but can be hired fairly easily.

She and her friends would come to the hospital every day and look for work by asking families who come to visit a patient if they needed help.

Prices range from RM70 to RM100 per day, and they will sit by the patient’s bedside to cater to his/her every need.

A rough estimate suggests that there are 500 of these caregivers in Kota Kinabalu alone; 300 who service Queen Elizabeth Hospital while the rest are at QE2.

No work visa, but plenty of work

Leonard, a 40-year-old Filipino also from Zamboanga, has been a regular presence at the hospital for some 16 years now. He came to Kota Kinabalu when his aunt and uncle told him about job prospects here.

When he first started getting jobs at the hospital, he had very little experience but doctors and nurses would help and teach him what needed to be done.

These days, he does not hang around the hospital looking for work like he did years ago but relies on phone calls from potential clients who hear about him through word of mouth recommendations.

The father of one claims he has cared for hundreds of patients over the years, mostly from Chinese and local families, and apart from speaking his native dialect and Bahasa Malaysia, Leonard also speaks Dusun.

Over the years, he has earned the trust of his patients so much so that some have even stayed at his house for ease of care.

“I have things set up so that I can take care of up to three patients at my own house. It is easier for some as I live in a single storey house and I can be there 24/7 to look after them. Their families are happy with the arrangement too,” he said, adding that the longest period he has looked after a patient is two and a half years.

Although they are not sanctioned by the hospitals, caregivers are a semi-permanent fixture at the general hospitals here.

The job, he said, may not be back-breaking manual labour under the sun but still requires a lot of attention and very little rest, depending on how ill the patient is. Sometimes, a caregiver can live at the hospital for weeks on end.

“After doing this for this long, I am very protective about my livelihood. We are just people looking for honest work and have to build up a good reputation because the odds are against us.

“But there are some unscrupulous people who do not take it seriously and this gives us a bad name,” he said.

Leonard said that over the years, caregivers no longer hang around the hospital in groups hoping for work but have a good network of clients and contacts that they work through their own channels.

“But still, there are busy periods where we can sometimes have two to three clients back-to-back, and other times where we don’t have work for months and then we have to resort to other jobs,” he said.

Providing a much-needed service

The demand for such caregivers began about 30 years ago and has grown over the years albeit with some changes.

“Hospitals were short of staff even then, and busy family members could not stay by the bedside of their loved ones for days when they were hospitalised,” said George Ng, who had hired a caregiver to take care of his mother many years ago.

He had heard from other friends about the caregivers who would hang around the hospital wards providing such services.

“She performed all the necessary duties including feeding, washing, exercising and turning my mother on the bed – things that the nurses didn’t necessarily do.

“Later on, we also took her on full time for a few months when my mother was discharged. She was reliable – if she had to take a day off, she would arrange for a replacement to come so I didn’t have to look for one,” he said.

Ng said he initially had reservations but the caregiver was professional and he added that he would recommend her to others.

“I know it isn’t hospital sanctioned but they are providing a much-needed service. There is definitely a demand for this service and many working families require it,” he said.

The hospitals are well aware of the presence of these caregivers and do not discriminate against them. They do not allow loitering, but otherwise, they can come and go as they please, particularly if they are currently under employment.

Both male and female caregivers are available to help patients whose families have to work and cannot be by their bedside 24 hours.

“We know they are here, but if they are brought in by our patient’s family, then it is up to them. I think the patients appreciate them, and so do the doctors and nurses because there is someone there to keep an eye on the patient at all times,” said a staff member of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital who declined to be named.

 Falling between the cracks

Unlike many illegal immigrants in Sabah who live in squatter colonies, Leonard lives in a rented terrace house in a safe neighbourhood in Penampang where his neighbours are working class locals and his landlord is aware of his status.

“He understands, and he rents it out to me knowing I won’t run away. I have my family with me and I want to make a living here. I go about my daily business and I pay him on time so he is fine with it,” he said.

Leonard walks around the hospital with ease but walking the streets where authorities can stop him to check his documents at any time is more stressful.

He claims he was apprehended at a bus stop once and brought to the local police station for not having documents but before he could be deported, he paid policemen a sum of money and was let off.

Viola also said that without documents, they are vulnerable to such abuse and can be taken advantage of. She claims she was once hired for three months to look after a cancer patient at his home but when he died, her patient’s family refused to pay her dues, only paying her for half-a-month’s work.

“There was nothing I could do but walk away, crying,” she said.

Leonard and Viola both originally travelled to Kota Kinabalu on their passports, which have long since expired. Leonard even had an employment letter he obtained from an agency many years ago but that has also expired.

Aware of their precarious status without documents, they keep a low profile and get by doing honest work for people they are referred to or know.

“I earn enough to get by and can even save some money. But to be honest, I would rather be poor here than rich back home anyway. The situation is so unsafe back home that if I had made money in my hometown, I would likely be robbed or killed for it and I would never feel safe.

“I would pay any amount of money if I could get a PR status here. I’ve tried before through agents but they just cheated me and ran off with my money so I’ve given up for now,” he said.

Leonard and Viola are among hundreds of thousands of Filipinos living in Sabah; some without any form of documents, some with refugee status, some with fake Malaysian MyKads and others with genuine MyKads obtained through illegal means, the last known as Project IC in the 1990s.

The government has taken steps to address the problem by deporting those without documents, especially in the east coast, but many more still fly under the radar. It remains a complex issue and a working committee set up to study possible solutions has yet to come up with concrete proposals.

But the high incidence of mixed marriages between locals and the economic migrants have resulted in children born in Sabah who qualify for Malaysian citizenship.

There have been proposals to absorb the community for humanity and social reasons but others have vehemently opposed the idea, citing social and economic burden from crime, etc.

For people like Leonard and Viola, and especially their children, the troubled Philippines is a world they have left behind, and for better or worse, they are calling Kota Kinabalu home.