About 300 nurses gather in the yard in front of
Phumin Temple in Nan province yesterday to press their demand that the
government recruit more nurses as permanent civil servants.
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PRIME
MINISTER General Prayut Chan-o-cha responded yesterday to ongoing
protests by nurses, saying the allocation of civil service posts that
they are demanding must comply with the workforce reformation plan every
five to 10 years.
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.
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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.
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Source - TheNation
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