PMH to press hospitals on medical workers' pay increases

The Public Health Ministry has come up with a resolution to increase the fixed allowances for all medical workers, doctors, and nurses across country.

Under the plan, chairman of the committee to maintain and encourage medical workers, Dr Suphan Srithamma, said the Health Ministry will ask hospitals to allocate a budget to increase the fixed allowances for medical workers at their institutions.

Hospital budgets come from four main financial sources: medical services charges, the National Health Security Office's universal health care scheme, the Social Security fund, and the Office of the Civil Service Commission.

"The hospital directors must manage these budgets by themselves to make the fixed allowances available for medical workers at hospitals and care units," he said.

Medical workers at rural hospitals and primary care units from one to three years will receive the increased fixed allowance of Bt 1,200 a month, and those who have worked over four years will receive Bt 1,800 a month.

Graduates with a diploma degree will receive Bt 600 a month after working one to four years, and Bt 900 a month for those with over four years' service.

Medical workers at general and centre hospitals will receive overtime payments of Bt 500 per workload, such as heart and appendicitis surgery.

The Ministry's Deputy Permanent Secretary, Dr Siriporn Kanchana said the ministry will evaluate the performance of medical workers six months after they have received the increased fixed allowances.

She said this resolution will bring medical workers who transferred themselves from primary care units to provincial public health offices or provincial hospitals, back to the primary care units.

At present only two medical workers were manning each primary care unit. The figure should be at least three to five per unit, she added.

To resolve the medical worker shortage problem, she said the ministry was accelerating the process for 16,000 temporarily employed health care workers including doctors, nurses, dentists, medical technologists, public health officers and other health care professionals to become government officers.

She said the committee will ask the ministry to bring this issue before Cabinet to approve the plan.

Public Health Minister, Witthaya Kaewparadia said he would speed the process after receiving the committee's report.

The National Health Security Office's secretarygeneral, Dr Winai Sawasdivorn said the agency would increase its per capita budget to support the increasing costs of fixed allowances for medical workers.