Research funded by the National Health Commission has found the public health sector will have a severe shortage of nurses and pharmacists, but an oversupply of doctors.
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Commission warns of doctor oversupply, lack of nurses
DUMRONGKIAT MALA
Thailand is expected to face a staffing problem in the public health sector in the next decade, according to research funded by the National Health Commission (NHC).
It found the public health sector will have a severe shortage of nurses and pharmacists, but an oversupply of doctors.
According to Thinakorn Noree, a senior researcher at the Ministry of Public Health involved in the research, Thailand will have excessive supply of public health graduates. Currently, 10,000 students graduate in public health annually with 90 universities offering medical health education programmes nationwide.
"I think we are producing too many public health graduates. We need to limit the number of students in this field or adjust the curriculum to be more relevant for our ageing population. If we do nothing, many of them will be unemployed," he said.
Dr Thinakorn said the ratio of doctors to the general population will balance out over the next decade. The country has 50,000 doctors and can produce 3,200 new doctors a year. Meanwhile, Thailand's population will remain at 65 million over the next decade after which it is expected to decline.
"With this pace of change, we will have doctors in abundance by the next decade," he said. However, Dr Thinakorn said there are concerns regarding the production of pharmacists and nurses. Even though Thailand can now produce 11,000 nurses and 1,700-2,000 pharmacists a year, he believes Thailand will still have a shortage of these professions over the next decade.
"Most nurses stop working at the age of 45 because they are also mothers and wives who have to look after their children and families, while many pharmaceutical science students these days switch to working in other fields after they graduate. We need to fix this problem," he said.
Note: Here is a comment on this story from a Bangkok Post reader:
"I am a doctor working at the university hospital in Khon Kaen. What I have seen that leads to the shortage of nurses is that the pay is insufficient for the hard work they perform and often they have abusive, arrogant head nurses and supervisors, so they get fed up at quite a young age and go to sell beauty products and make-up, etc., where they are their own boss and can make much more money than working as nurses."
