THE GOVERNMENT has agreed to give civil-servant status to all nurses now working at state hospitals as employees or temporary employees within three years.

The move followed nurses’ protests and threats to quit their jobs.

“We will gradually recruit them to civil servant positions,” Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday. “This is the best we can offer now.”

The prime minister was speaking after the Cabinet approved a plan to provide an additional 2,900 civil servant positions to nurses who are waiting for civil-servant status at state hospitals this year.

The addition is on top of 2,200 civil servant positions that the Public Health Ministry has prepared for nurses.

“I think nurses in general must be satisfied with the government response,” Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council’s vice-president Krisada Sawaengdee said.

She believed nurses would not quit their jobs at state hospitals if the government gave assurances that they were going to be hired as civil servants within the next three years.

Her council has long played an active role in putting nurses’ issues forward. For years, many nurses have been working hard at state hospitals either as the Public Health Ministry’s employees or temporary employees.

As the government has pursued a goal of downsizing the civil service workforce, the Public Health Ministry has resolved to hire medical staff in the positions of employees or temporary employees.

The ministry’s move aims to ensure that state hospitals have a big enough workforce to deliver services. But the problem is that all nurses at state hospitals hope for a civil-servant status, which promises better welfare and greater job security.

When the wait for the status takes too long, many have quit to join private hospitals. Several others, meanwhile, have tried to fight for the improved status and staged demonstrations.

At present, as many as 10,982 nurses work at state hospitals without civil-servant status.

Tipawan Thabpha, a nurse without civil-servant status and a member of an employee nurse network, said her group would issue a clear stance after seeing the Cabinet’s order in writing.

“Our next rallies may be staged to express a thank you,” she said.

So far, Tipawan said her network might seek further discussions on how to prevent new nurses from having to wait for a civil-servant status at state hospitals.

“About 3,000 new nurses have joined state hospitals every year, so there should be measures to help them. We will ask if the government will agree to automatically offer jobs and civil-servant status to graduates from (state-run) nursing schools the way doctor graduates enjoy,” she said.

Nurses’ hope for job security

• Number of nurses without civil-servant status at state hospitals: 10,992
• Number of nurses that the Public Health Ministry plans to recruit as civil servants in 2017: 2,200
• Number of nurses to receive civil-servant status through special quota approved by the Cabinet in 2017: 2,900
• Number of new nurses at state hospitals each year: 3,000

Source: Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council