Government Spokesperson Lt-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said after the Cabinet meeting that the request to add 10,992 positions for nurses had been accepted, while ministers had also approved 2,000 civil-servant positions for doctors and 600 for dentists.

He said that as there were already 2,200 vacant positions for nurses, another 8,792 new posts would be created over a three-year period.

Some 2,992 nursing positions will come into being this year, and another 2,900 in each of the next two years.

Earlier, the Cabinet had decided to allow the Public Health Ministry to use the already-vacant positions for nurses first, and had denied the request for new positions, but this met with anger from temporary-employee nurses, who were waiting to be enlisted as civil servants.

Sansern explained that as the number of doctors and dentists per 10,000 people was still lower than average, the Cabinet had approved new civil-servant positions for these professions in order to mitigate the shortages.

However, the request for new civil-servant positions for pharmacists has not been approved by the Cabinet, because Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed the Public Health Ministry to check the number of vacant positions first.

This was because it had been found that there was one pharmacist per 6,200 people, which was already on target for the ministry, the spokesperson added.