Prayut said every ministry had to follow the rules in enrolling new workers and had to manage their vacant positions first before asking for more staff.

He also urged the nurses not to protest and make the issue political.

Nurses have pledged to continue their protest amid complaints about understaffing, tough working conditions and unfair salaries. The Public Health Ministry has asked them to be patient, stating that nursing positions are being allocated.

Hundreds of nurses in Nan demonstrated yesterday to show solidarity with government-employed nurses campaigning for more permanent civil servant positions and fairer benefits.

Pattanaphong Wongbunyanuwej, a representative of the Nan nurses, said the group gathered in a symbolic gesture to raise their voices to the government, urging it to allocate more civil servant positions and improve the working conditions and benefits for nurses. “We want the government to understand the hardship of nurses, as we are working extraordinarily long hours with unfair remuneration, so we gather today to show our demands,” Pattanaphong said.

Meanwhile, the Temporary Employee Professional Nurse Network fan page on Facebook invited temporary nurses to fill in a questionnaire to survey the number who intend to resign if the proposal to increase civil servant position for nurses is rejected by the government.

Dr Tassana Boontong, president of the Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council, stressed that the civil servant position is very important for a nurse, as it can guarantee career stability and provide proper health benefits for their family.

“This problem [the nurses unable to be enrolled as civil servants] causes 48 per cent of new nurses to resign after the first year at work. In the second year, 25 per cent of those remaining follow suit. How can we have enough nurses in the system, as we cannot save them in the system in the first place?” Tassana said.

“Our research showed that the nurses worked up to 37 shifts per month, but their payment is low compared to the doctors. There is also not enough welfare for the nurses if they are injured or die due to their work.”

She said that the performance-based pay for nurses was almost 28 times lower than for doctors, even though they work harder. In case of an accident, nurses receive very little benefits to compensate for their loss. “This is a good time for the policy makers to understand nurses’ hardship. They give up their energy, time and personal lives to take care of the patients and look after our health, so they should have job security and better welfare in return,” she said.

Tassana said the Nursing and Midwifery Council had proposed 10,992 civil servant positions for nurses over three years. This meant that only 3,662 positions were sought from the government per year, which was not a large amount.

However, she said she understood that the Public Health Ministry was working hard to manage the vacant positions for nurses to meet the proposed positions and asked fellow nurses to be patient during this allocation.