PM to meet nurses to prevent strike
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Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is scheduled to meet with nurses' representatives on Monday to address discontent over their continued temporary-employee status.
The move is seen as an attempt to head off the nurses’ threatened three-day strike.
“She will meet with the nurses’ representatives at Government House,” Public Health Ministry deputy permanent secretary Dr Suphan Srithamma said yesterday.
Thousands of nurses have staged protests this year to demand that the government honour its promise to recruit them as civil servants. They are unhappy that they have been working at state hospitals for years but continue to be denied the status.
Their representatives have lately threatened to begin a three-day strike on January 1 if the government continues to ignore their plight.
Suphan yesterday said Yingluck would explain to the nurses’ representatives that the government and the Public Health Ministry is trying to solve the problem.
About 17,000 nurses have been working as temporary employees.
“Due to certain regulations, we may not be able to recruit all [nurses] as civil servants at once. But we should be able to recruit them first as employees of the Public Health Ministry,” he said.
“The remuneration will be similar.”
Ministry employees will also be entitled to educational leave, he said.
Suphan said relevant authorities would conclude a solution by mid-December, with the whole problem being completely tackled within three years.
He expected the nurses to welcome the government’s plan. He also hoped that they would not go on strike.
“A strike would adversely affect patients,” he said.
