Ministry offers to employ temp nurses

POUNGCHOMPOO PRASERT

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- After state-hospital nurses rallied for permanent employment contracts, the Public Health Ministry has drafted a regulation to make some nurses its own employees because of a limited quota for civil servants set by the Office of the Civil Service Commission (OCSC).

This regulation should go into effect by December, deputy permanent secretary Dr Supan Srithamma told a public forum yesterday.

However, the Nurses' Association of Thailand as well as many nursing temps said they were not very happy about this solution.

Supan said the ministry was working with the OCSC to figure out how many nurses on temporary contracts can become civil servants on a yearly basis for the next three years.

The ministry has asked for the first annual batch of 5,800 civil-servant positions to be filled by nurses from January 1, 2013. This would require a budget of Bt4.2 billion.

Meanwhile, nurses on temporary contracts who cannot become civil servants or are in the pending status will be made ministry employees. As employees of the ministry, they will earn 1.2 times more than civil servants but will get the same annual leave as civil servants as well as health coverage under the Social Security Office scheme.

This batch of nurses will be employed by the ministry from next June and the cost for this would be Bt1.7 billion a year, he said.

Supan stressed that though the nurses would not get a state pension, they would be granted a provident fund, which requires contributions of 3-5 per cent of the salary and is met in equal amounts by the government.

Jintana Yunibhand, president of the Nurses' Association of Thailand, said that though she had initially agreed to this solution, she wanted more incentives to be provided.

Also, she said, a longer-term solution should be provided for nurses who have served for more than seven years.

Jongkol Inthasan, chief nurse at Ayutthaya's Bang Pahan Hospital, said all nurses on temporary contracts wanted to be employed as civil servants so they could all get the same benefits.

She also said nurses did not just want to become civil servants for the extra money, but also for the recognition in the community.

Currently, there are some 26,790 temporary personnel under the Public Health Ministry, of whom 12,088 are temp nurses and 656 pharmacists.

-- The Nation 2012-10-31

The complaint against the govt is they want permanency for the existing nurses so how is this a solution by offering to employ more temporary nurses? The whole nursing environment becomes temporary?

Well, phasing in the temp nurses to permanent civil service employees over a three year period should work, but I expect the nurses' real concern is whether the govt would really follow through. While they would probably try to follow-through on the first annual batch I can just see the concern that the govt would come up with excuses like they don't have enough civil service budget, they have to wait for other civil servants to retire in order to free up positions, transferring/stealing positions from other govt agencies in order to create positions for nurses probably won't fly, etc....etc....etc.

Thai politicians are great in throwing a stick for the people to happily chase but when the people come back with the stick for more fun & play the politicians have slithered away...and even if the politicians are still in power when asked about their previous promises they usually give that wide-eyed look of, "What are you talking about...that's not what I said...that's not what I meant...we just need a little more time...etc...etc....etc."

It is obvious a good answer for those unemployed at present, but its also a short term solution and short term thinking for a long term problem that needs a long term solution.

It would be interesting to know if they have any long term solutions on the Table.

Edited October 31, 201213 yr by jerrysteve

I still say I should hire one of these ladies as my daughters nanny. Good money, and enough for benefits. The monetary kind. I'm serious, they should get more.

for a second, i tought they would import foreign (indian, philippines) nurses, in exchange for rice...

they tried chicken for airplane fighters, so why not