Nurses To Rally At Thai Govt House; Demanding Permanent Contracts, Less Workload

[danozxfxr]

This country is well known the world over for extremely cheap labor. The government is well aware of that & also exploits it. (No big secret there). My wife is a government nurse with 17 years in. Yes, the pay & benefits aren't that great, but the worst thing I've seen them endure is rotating on 3 shifts. Ocassionally two in a 24 hour period. Add to that mandatory conferances & classes with minimul days off. You would think health care providers would be flagged working on a few hours of sleep. Yet they push on & continue to show up with smiles and professionalism to the best of their ability. It's nothing less then admirable; but sad to see them taken advantage of.

[jerrysteve]

It does no good to reply to these articles...Unlike the opportunity of becoming a citizen in Thailand (and who would want to anyway), foreigners who enter western countries have the opportunity to become citizens and have political clout thru their votes.

In Thailand no foreigner can do that, and again who would want too.

But there is no way in hell on earth that anyone on this website heras any political clout in this Country or ever will.

.

So why bother to write anything whatsoever...It is an exercise in futility

Time is better spent enjoying one's life than rather bitching, and moaning about issues which no one has control

over especially XPATS, and its obvious the Thai citizens don't care either or they would rise up aga itinst the

MACHINE and change it

.

If they don't give a hoot, why the hell should anyone here.

Edited October 16, 2012 by jerrysteve

[cdnski12]

Thai RN's that speak fluent English can probably find jobs in all the English speaking countries. I recently had occasion to observe a large Canadian Hospital in action while I was taking 6 weeks of Radiation & Brachytherapy Treatments. I inadvertently wandered onto a Heavy duty ward. Patients in the hallways ... some prepped for the operating theatre, nurses running around. We could definitely use more nurses.

[chiangmaikelly]

Nursing has come a long way from when they were recruited from work houses and institutions and paid in rum, but not far enough. The nursing shortage is a world wide problem, after all who wants to study for years just to work flat out wiping bums for a minimum wage. In Australia its the lowest paying profession, so they import nurses from all around the world. However, these nurses are not as well trained and are train in a different nursing philosophy, this has led to an overall deskilling of nurses working in Australian and adverse outcomes for patients. Hopefully the Thai government will come to it senses and increase Thai nurses wages to better reflect the work they do and legislated a realistic nurse to patient ratio.

Registered Nurses in US hospitals assigned to floors work about 32 to 36 hours a week and earn in mid 50s to 60s. CNAs do dirty work or wipe bums.

I never had a Thai nurse wipe my bum. Always brought my own help to do showers and feed me and such. I have never been to a Thai hospital without private help. I thought that was standard if one had a private room (that you brought your own labor).

[chiangmaikelly]

Thai RN's that speak fluent English can probably find jobs in all the English speaking countries. I recently had occasion to observe a large Canadian Hospital in action while I was taking 6 weeks of Radiation & Brachytherapy Treatments. I inadvertently wandered onto a Heavy duty ward. Patients in the hallways ... some prepped for the operating theatre, nurses running around. We could definitely use more nurses.

A lot of Thai doctors are educated in the West and move back to Thailand. I don't think nurses want to leave Thailand. Philippines yes Thailand no.

[caughtintheact]

In 2015 the AEC is scheduled to open, and that is supposed to provide far less inhibited flows of labor among the ten member countries. English speaking nurses from countries with lower pay and better English than Thailand, will be sought after in Thailand. Will this offset the English speaking Thai nurses who may go to other ASEAN countries to work? Will state hospitals be able to refuse to hire nurses from other countries or risk strikes by Thai nurses?

The protests are said to be about working fewer hours on permanent contracts rather than about more pay. If a permanent contract means that a nurse can only be fired for cause, will that not result in nurses spending long hours on the job, but doing less work because they cannot be fired or because it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare to fire those that are incompetent or lazy? Permanent contracts usually mean getting paid, regardless of performance. Government teachers have more or less permanent contracts, and that is one of the reasons that the level of English is so poor in Thailand. When English teachers at many levels use Thai in English classes to teach students how to read, write, speak and comprehend English, can anyone expect the students to become even reasonably fluent in English?

Will the government intervene in the AEC and change the rules to "protect" Thai jobs (including nursing jobs ). At least one official has talked about it.

When the AEC opens (if politicians do not change their minds) competition is going to increase in many areas. I suspect that the prospect of the AEC has put some fear in the minds of nurses, because no one can be sure at this time how the flow will work out. The pending AEC might be one of the factors causing the demand for permanent contracts. Permanent contracts mean less competition. Thai government sector teachers have permanent contracts. How well has that turned out for the level of English fluency in Thailand?

The AEC is probably not a factor in demanding fewer working hours. However fewer working hours means that hospitals will not be able to treat as many people, and when a hospital cannot treat as many people, where will the revenue come from to keep the hospitals open? The answer is likely to be more taxes, direct and indirect taxes (e.g., a VAT increase), or increasing hospital costs. All of these cause different and undesirable impacts.

Nursing is a tough enough job when learning it in one's native language. Having to learn many words in English, yet being inept in that language would appear to complicate things even more.

A very wise man once said the following,

...look at both the short term and long term impacts of an act or policy AND be able to trace the impacts of the act or policy on all groups, not just one or two.

Governments almost never do this, and for every act or policy there are always going to be unintended consequences, perhaps good, but far too often, harmful.

[thaicbr]

The biggest problem is not the pay, but the fact that there are not enough nurses. Teaching them English will only make it more tempting to work abroad, making the problem worse. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any plan to increase education capacity. There's also a shortage of teachers.

NO THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS THAT THEY ARE CLASSIFIED AS TEMPORARY WORKERS.

[carib102]

Nursing has come a long way from when they were recruited from work houses and institutions and paid in rum, but not far enough. The nursing shortage is a world wide problem, after all who wants to study for years just to work flat out wiping bums for a minimum wage. In Australia its the lowest paying profession, so they import nurses from all around the world. However, these nurses are not as well trained and are train in a different nursing philosophy, this has led to an overall deskilling of nurses working in Australian and adverse outcomes for patients. Hopefully the Thai government will come to it senses and increase Thai nurses wages to better reflect the work they do and legislated a realistic nurse to patient ratio.

Registered Nurses in US hospitals assigned to floors work about 32 to 36 hours a week and earn in mid 50s to 60s. CNAs do dirty work or wipe bums.

And even the CNA's make far above minimum wage in the U.S. My hometown (population just 250k) has nursing homes that pay $12+ an hour for CNA's and the hospitals pay $14+ an hour.