Situation of Employing Retired Nurses in Hospitals under the Permanent Secretary Office of Ministry of Public Health

Abstract

The cross-sectional survey research was conducted to study the situation of employment of retired nurses in hospitals under the Permanent Secretary Office of the Ministry of Public Health. The data on employment of retired nurses were surveyed from regional hospitals, general hospitals and community hospitals during fiscal year 2019-2020.

The results show that there were 31 of 116 regional and general hospitals (26.7%) that employed retired nurses in 2019. In the fiscal year 2020, there were 28 hospitals (24.1%) that employed 162 retired nurses. For community hospitals, 20 of 780 hospitals (2.6%) employed 32 retired nurses in 2019 and reduced to 18 hospitals employing 20 retired nurses in 2020. Hospitals in the central and the eastern regions had the highest employments of retired nurses. There were 2 types of job characteristics (nursing work and non-nursing work such as health information management and health record). The pattern of employment was either full-time or part-time. Many payment arrangements were reported, such as daily payment (at a rate of 600-800 baht a day), monthly payment, and performance compensation. However, all payments were based on the regulations of the Ministry of Public Health. As for communi­ty hospitals, 20 hospitals employed 32 retired nurses (2.6%) in 2019, and reduced to only 18 hospitals employing 20 nurses (2.3 %) in 2020. During the fiscal year 2019-2020, hospitals in the central and the eastern regions (Health Region 4, 5 and 6) reported the highest employment rate than other regions. Regarding the 2 types of employment: 1) the nursing work employment was reported at the outpatient department, inpatient wards, special clinics and antenatal care clinics, accident and emergency depart­ment, central dispensing unit, breast feeding clinic, orthopedic department, primary and community care unit, and diabetes clinic. 2) The non-nursing work employment was reported in other departments such as in the medical records audit, the outreach health check unit, the patient complaint services, the health insurance center, and the public relations. The monthly payment was approximately 13,000-20,000 baht a month. The time-based payments varied as 100 baht an hour for working in the central supply unit, 80 baht an hour for other units, 450-600 baht a day for the patient complaint services, and the public relations, respectively.

The results revealed the situation of employment of retired nurses, the characteristics and the patterns of employment. These results should be useful for policy development on human resource planning. Moreover, employment of retired nurses at different levels of health sectors should be further researched.