Management needs to be drastically improved, both to attract and to keep staff, as a large number of nurses have resigned to work in private hospitals, he added.

Mongkol was giving an interview during a trip to inspect government hospitals in Ratchaburi, where he said nurses at Ban Pong Hospital could take only four days off a month, because of the heavy workload.

Civil Service Commission (CSC) officials accompanied Mongkol on the trip, to observe the staff-shortage problem. Mongkol said the problem was now acute and would result in hospitals being unable to provide efficient service to the public without help from the CSC.

Mongkol said there would be only 30 per cent of staff left in government hospitals and clinics in the three strife-torn southernmost provinces if all requests for transfers were granted.

At Phahol Pholphayuthasena Hospital in neighbouring Kanchanaburi province, medical staff and patients alike suffer from stress, due to poor and slow public service.

Many hospitals must use donated money to pay medical staff for overtime.

Staff shortages have forced Maha Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital to put plans to open a Neurosurgery Department on hold, despite an urgent need for it among the local population.

The brain-drain percentage of graduates from government-run nursing schools is also high and will face a critical level in the next four years.