Call For All Nurses To Be Employed As Civil Servants At Thai State Hospitals

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Call for all nurses to be employed as civil servants at state hospitals

By The Nation

About half of the nurses engaged as temporary employees at staterun hospitals quit their jobs in the first year, with many others resigning later until almost none were left after a fiveyear period, research revealed yesterday.

Meanwhile, during the survey period the rate of resignation among civilservant nurses was oneninth that of temporary nursing employees, leading to a call to have all nurses engaged as civil servants in public hospitals.

Dr Krissada Sawaengdee, a researcher at the International Health Policy Programme's Human Resources for Health Research and Development Office, said a study by the Public Health Ministry's Permanent Secretary's Office into nursing, physical therapist and medical technician manpower losses had found the brain drain of personnel from staterun medical facilities to privately run ones was critical.

A key factor is that the government since 2005 has insisted on hiring these personnel as employees at staterun hospitals, rather than as civil servants, in a move that has reduced their job security and run counter to the public's growing demand for healthcare services, he said.

The ministry's Permanent Secretary's Office has to date funded the hiring of 102,833 temporary employees - including 23,843 nurses, 11,744 physical therapists and 755 medical technicians - Krissada said.

The study found that from 2005 to 2009, manpower at 67 central and general hospitals had fallen dramatically, as the average resignation rate among medical technicians was 64.58 per cent, with that among physical therapists at 51.05 per cent, and 40.84 per cent among nurses.

Krissada said most of those leaving went on to work at privately run facilities.

The study further found that 48.68 per cent of temporary nursing employees would quit their jobs in the first year and another 25.57 per cent in the second year, until there were almost none left after five years. He said rural areas particularly suffered from this brain drain, such as Nan province where 90 per cent of temporary nursing employees left in the first year of work.

The solution to retaining them, he said, seemed to be to grant them civilservant status, as the number of such nurses in the southernmost provinces was 92.3 per cent of those employed at the start of the survey period, despite the fact that the region suffers from insurgents' violence.

The number that had quit their jobs was 9.2 times lower than the resignation rate for those engaged on a temporary basis.

The public sector's inability to keep manpower resulted in a great loss, as it had invested a huge amount in producing these key personnel but could make little use of them, he said, expressing concern that the government's policy of tambonlevel healthpromotion hospitals could not achieve its goal in the face of such a manpower shortage.

Hence the government should engage these personnel as civil servants as the fastest and easiest solution to keeping them, Krissada said.

-- The Nation 2011-03-25

[TheLaughingMan]

Thailand has some of the richest people in the world. Don't for one second think it hasn't got the money to actually run the country properly. The people at the top are so corrupt and full of thievery that the money that should be going to medical care, education etc is just getting funneled off into peoples pockets. The nurses are all quitting because the top thieves don't want the monetary loss of providing security and benefits to state employees in STATE hospitals? What the hell did they think would happen. Too stupid to tie their own shoes.

[asiawatcher]

State run pay packets are pathetic. Of the nurses I know not one remained with state. That kinda says it all. Pay peanuts you get monkeys. Medical is affordable if not run as a corrupt business.