A statement by the CSCO on Thursday stressed that the proportion of nurses in Thailand related to population was 21.4 nurses per 10,000 people, which is higher than the minimum standard of the World Health Organisation at 20 nurses per 10,000 people.

In addition, the CSCO said that the Public Health Ministry had many vacant civil servant positions. On March 3, there were total 11,213 empty civil servant positions – 5.8 per cent of all of the ministry’s 192,960 civil servant positions.

Given the figures, the CSCO suggested that the ministry should properly manage the vacant positions for nurses to assure efficient budgeting.

The ministry currently has 105,260 nursing positions, 90,574 of which are civil servants, 372 are public sector employees, 9,640 are ministry employees, and 4,674 are temporary employees.

Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council vice president Dr Krisada Sawaengdee said that the government aimed to downsize the civil servant system which caused many nurses to be hired as governmental employees with fewer benefits and job security than civil servants.

“The lower benefits and unfair employment situation for governmental employee nurse is the major reason that we cannot keep the valuable and experienced nurses in the system. The nurses work hard for long hours and suffer a lot of stress in return for a cheap salary, unfair benefits, and the lack of a chance to develop in their career,” Krisada said.

“This problem leads to major brain drain in our public health system, as the experienced nurses resign from the public sector and work in private hospitals for a higher salary instead. Even if we can create a lot of new nurses to fill in the empty seats, we cannot hold them in the position for long.”

She said that if the nurses don’t get civil servant positions the authorities should increase salaries and benefits for nurses employed by the government, in order to keep them in the |system.

Krisada said state employees should benefit from study leave, and the right to progress in their career such as a raise and promotion and have health insurance that covers family.

“The good employment conditions will keep nurses in the job and assure that people will have enough |experienced nurses to take care of them, which will boost our public health service in general,” she said.

Thippawan Thappha, a government employee nurse, said she had been waiting to be admitted as a civil servant for four years. She said that if she was still unable to become a civil servant, she might consider working in a private hospital.

“We are tired of working for up to 16 hours a day to take care of the patients and bearing a lot of stress and expectation from patients’ families. We want the job stability for our life,” Thippawan said.

“I chose to work in the province so I can be close to my family in return for low pay. I would like to have the Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme for my parents and a chance to progress in my career. If I will not have those benefits, I prefer to work for higher salary in a private hospital.”

Yesterday was International Nurses Day, with this year’s theme “Nurses: A voice to lead – Achieving Sustainable Development Goals”.