Thailand is currently facing a crisis regarding its health workforce. For example:

The Problems

Poor distribution: We produce enough doctors on paper, but they are in the wrong places. While cities are fine, some are oversaturated, but the rural border areas face low doctor vs population ratio. Other professionals, especially nurses, are even scarcer.
Burnout issue: Staff are leaving the public hospitals to private practice and it is not just for money, but due to poor management, heavy workloads, and high expectations from patients and families.
Lack of Value: Many workers feel undervalued, unprotected, and financially under-paid.
Unnecessary tasks: Paperwork such as for accreditation and unplanned policies from the central goverment (like the sudden Dialysis Choice policy) cause hugh overload without extra support or pay.
Rigid government system: Strict government rules prevent hospital directors from easily hiring help or firing underperforming staff.

The Solutions
I feel that health system in Thailand is very complexed, so to tackle the problems is quite challenging. However, the suggestions could be:
Cut the paperwork: Reduce documentation and pause new non-essential projects.
Informatics: Use it to decrease workload, though we must face the initial implementation barriers.
Empower the workforce: Allow health workers to form unions to negotiate fair working hours, payment and safety standards.
Strengthen primary care: Use our existing community health network to manage care locally, preventing big hospitals from unnessessary workload.

The health workforce situation in my country, Myanmar, is a serious concern. Even before recent political events, Myanmar already had a shortage of health workers, especially doctors, nurses, and midwives. Many rural and remote areas were underserved, with limited access to trained health professionals.

Since 2021, the situation has become much worse. A large number of health workers left the public health system due to safety concerns, low pay, and political situations. Many public hospitals and clinics are now understaffed or unable to provide regular services. Health workers who continue to work often face unsafe conditions, high workloads, and emotional stress. This has directly affected essential services such as maternal and child health care, immunization programs, and emergency services, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas.

To improve the situation, I believe several practical steps can be taken. First, the safety and protection of health workers must be prioritized, and medical neutrality should be respected even in conflict situation. Second, better incentives such as fair salaries, allowances, and psychosocial support are needed to retain health workers. Third, strengthening training opportunities and continuous professional development can help motivate and upskill the existing workforce. In the short term, task-shifting and stronger support for community health workers can help maintain basic health services where there are not enough doctors or nurses. Moreover, strengthening telehealth such as “Telekyanmar” (a specialized telehealth platform which provides free medical consultations to the people of Myanmar) would provide benefits for the patients, healthcare professionals, and the health system. Finally, collaboration with NGOs and international organizations is important to support health workers and sustain essential services during this crisis.

Overall, the health workforce crisis in Myanmar reflects both long-standing system weaknesses and the impact of ongoing instability. Addressing these issues is essential for rebuilding trust in the health system and ensuring that people can access basic health care.

Myanmar’s health workforce is under severe strain and has become increasingly labour-intensive due to a serious imbalance between the number of patients and available health workers across all levels of the health system. In many public hospitals, a small number of doctors and nurses are expected to care for large patient volumes, which leads to long waiting times, staff burnout, and reduced quality of care. The situation is even worse in conflict-affected and hard-to-reach areas, where insecurity, displacement, and damaged infrastructure have driven many health workers away, leaving communities with very limited access to basic services.

The shortage of health workers has also affected the quality and safety of care. Limited availability and tight control of medicines and medical equipment reduce clinicians’ ability to diagnose and treat patients properly. After the coup, many skilled professionals, including doctors, nurses, specialists, and hospital management teams, are no longer in the formal system because of their involvement in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), safety concerns, or migration. As a result, remaining staff (non-CDM) are overstretched and often forced to work beyond their capacity, increasing the risk of errors and poor patient outcomes.

In addition, corruption at different levels of the health system creates further barriers for patients. People may need to pay informal fees to receive services, or access hospital care. This increases out-of-pocket spending and makes healthcare unaffordable for many families, especially vulnerable populations. At the same time, ongoing conflict disrupts health facilities through damage, and insecurity, further reducing service availability.

To improve the above situation, it requires both political stability and strong support from the (?) government and international community to rebuild trust and functionality in the health system. With a more stable environment, the country can increase recruitment of skilled health workers and offer fair salaries that meet basic living needs, helping retain doctors, nurses, and specialists. Continuous training is also essential to ensure staff remain competent and motivated. At the system level, strengthening logistics, administration, and supply chains will improve access to medicines and equipment, while clear protection mechanisms are needed to keep healthcare workers safe, especially in conflict-affected areas. Providing incentives for high-performing staff can boost morale, and reducing unnecessary paperwork through better systems can free up time for patient care. At the same time, systematic hospital management and effective budget allocation to the health sector are important for quality health care.

Policies on production and health workforce: The medical and paramedical schools are fewer in Myanmar compared to other countries. According to Myanmar National Health policy and plan, the production of qualified medical professionals has implemented increasingly in recent years. But student selection, qualified teaching staff and infrastructures are important to produce proficient health workers. Many qualified workers migrated to abroad for better opportunities, some are out of labour force from medical field, and a few are unemployed. So, retaining of employed health workers is the urgent one to act at ground level. It should be considered to attract unemployed health workers. Further learning opportunities and adequate financial income is very important to get motivation to work in current health system.
Other factors: System Collapse was happened due to political event in 2021. The public health system is barely functioning, with severe limitations on vaccinations and emergency services. Health workers face constant, targeted attacks and are frequently arrested, killed, or forced into hiding. Due to economic crisis, many professionals are leaving the public sector. The boarder regions like Rakhine, Sagaing, Northern Shan and Chin faced many restriction and health emergencies requiring humanitarian needs. Despite dangers, many health workers continue to provide care outside military-controlled areas through volunteer networks and ethnic health organizations as an alternative care. External supports for their continued medical education is vital for those health workers to supplement the service delivery gaps at conflict areas.

According to the Analysis of Access to Essential Health Services in Myanmar 2021-2023 by the World Bank, Myanmar already had only 17.8 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 population, which was below the WHO minimum threshold of 22.8 per 10,000 population before the 2021 crisis. The military takeover of 2021 sparked widespread protests and a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) led by public servants, resulting in violence, political instability, and a reduced healthcare workforce in the public sector, with approximately 50% joining the CDM. Myanmar’s healthcare system comprises public, private, non-profit, and ethnic health organizations (EHOs). Most private health workers and facilities are concentrated in major cities, leaving rural and conflict-affected areas critically underserved.

To improve this situation, I would like to suggest the following action plans:

• Strengthening collaboration with EHOs, NGOs, and private providers to maintain essential services, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas.
• Expand mobile clinics and telemedicine
• Support training and task-shifting to expand the health service delivery
• Engage the international donors to support health workforce development

Myanmar is currently facing a serious health workforce crisis. Even before the 2021 military coup, the country had only about 1.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 population (source: Ministry of Health ans Sports: Myanmar National Health Plan 2017-2021), which is far below the WHO minimum recommendation of 2.3 per 1,000 needed to provide basic health services (source: WHO Report: Working Together for Health). After the coup, the situation worsened significantly as a large number of healthcare workers joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), leading to a major reduction in the public health workforce. Many others left the profession or migrated abroad due to safety concerns, low salaries and poor working conditions.
As a result, many public hospitals and health centers became understaffed or non-functional, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas. This has disrupted essential services such as maternal and child health care, emergency services, immunization programs and disease control, increasing health risks for vulnerable populations.
To improve the situation, it is essential to ensure the safety and protection of healthcare workers and rebuild trust in the health system. Improving pay and working conditions, strengthening training and retention programs, supporting community and ethnic health organizations, and increasing international support are key steps toward rebuilding a sustainable health workforce in Myanmar.

The health force situation in Myanmar is facing a long-term crisis.
Myanmar constantly had a low health worker-to-population ratio compared to international standards. Even before recent political and social challenges, the country had fewer health workers than needed to achieve universal health coverage. After 2021, the situation worsened significantly.

Key challenges:
Understaffing: due to heavy workload (and vice versa) has been a vicious cycle for many years. Heavy workload leads to burnout and conflicts among doctors and between doctors and nurses.
Lower pay and nearly no incentives schemes: make shifting of health workers to non-government sectors. Moreover, many of the doctors and nurses migrate to developed countries due to higher pay and better quality of life, leading to “brain drain”
High expectation amidst insufficient medicine and commodity: High patient expectations lead to physical and emotional burnout. Poor working environment and infrastructure increases stress and reduces job satisfaction.
Poor QOL: Most of the health workers feel they have no quality of life as they spend most of their time in hospital with less pay. This can raise many social and economic issues.
Unequal distribution: professionals are concentrated in urban areas, leading to underserved communities in rural areas.

Possible Solutions:
Improve salary and allowance: Competitive salaries, rural incentives, and hardship allowances can help retain staff.
Stronger policy: The government should introduce and enforce benefits like social security schemes for health workers.
Motivation and retention strategies: develop professional development and clear career succession plans, regular assessment for staff retention and implementation according to the finding. (This may include financial and non-financial incentives)
Training: Train more doctors, nurses and allied health workforce.
Infrastructure and commodities: renovating facilities, ensure adequate medical supplies can reduce burnout.
Working hours: fixed working hours and fair workload distribution can improve quality of life for health workers.

Are you aware of the health workforce situation in your country? Can you share with your peers and Can you suggest what can be done to improve the situation?
Yes. Myanmar is facing a serious health workforce crisis. Many doctors, nurses, and health workers have left the public system due to insecurity, low pay, limited training opportunities, and unsafe working conditions. This has reduced access to essential health services, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas.
To improve the situation:
1. Protect health workers and ensure safe working conditions
2. Provide fair salaries and incentives, especially for rural areas
3. Support training, mentoring, and task-shifting to community health workers
4. Strengthen partnerships with NGOs, ethnic health organizations, and local providers
These steps can help maintain basic services and rebuild the health workforce over time.

In Myanmar, we are facing a critical health workforce crisis. Even before the 2021 coup, our country was below WHO standards for the number of health workers, with big gaps between urban and rural areas. Since the coup, Civil Disobedient Movement (CDM), attacks on health workers and hospitals, mass displacement, and migration have made the situation much worse. By 2025, nearly 20 million people need humanitarian assistance, millions are displaced, and hundreds of health facilities have been attacked. Training of new doctors, nurses and other cadres has been disrupted, and many professionals are traumatized or planning to leave the country.

To improve this situation, we must take the following actions.
• Neutrality and Protection: There must be an absolute, enforced commitment from all parties to treat health workers and facilities as neutral zones. Attacking a hospital or arresting a doctor must be recognized as a red line that carries international consequences.
• Support for Parallel Systems: Since the formal state system is fractured, we must provide direct resources such as medicines, training, and funding to the ethnic health organizations and community-based networks that are actually on the ground in conflict zones.
• Task-Shifting: We need to formally empower community health workers and midwives to take on more clinical responsibilities. In a crisis where doctors are scarce, these frontline workers are the only hope for millions of displaced people.
• Flexible Education: We must create “bridging” programs that recognize informal or online training, allowing students whose education was interrupted to complete their degrees through flexible, competency-based pathways.

In the Philippines, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are hailed as modern-day heroes because of their contribution to the Philippine economy through their remittances, and because of their resilience and sacrifices to work abroad in order to support their family at home. However, outward migration of health workers, especially nurses, has been a problem for many years. The Philippines lacks an estimated of 127,000 nurses and according to the WHO’s State of World’s Nursing report in 2020, this figure is projected to increase to 249,843 by 2030. Despite the shortage of nurses in the country, outward migration of Filipino nurses continues. In 2021 for example, the Department of Health estimated that of the 316,000 licensed Filipino nurses, 51% are working abroad. This number continues to increase, as reported by the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW). Every year, DMW’s Overseas Employment Statistics list nursing as one of the top 10 skills of Deployed Landbased Overseas Filipino Workers – New Hires. In 2023, 12,630 nurses were newly-hired overseas, and an additional of 10,635 nurses were newly-hired in 2024.

Two of the main reasons why nurses prefer to work abroad are inadequate salary/benefits and poor working conditions (especially high nurse-to-patient ratios). My younger sister is a nurse working at a private hospital, and many of her colleagues had left the hospital to work in another country. She is also thinking of working abroad herself, because of the many job opportunities that offer higher salary and less workload. Last December 2025, a bill was filed by a senator seeking to increase the salary grade of nurses from salary grade 15 to 19. Hopefully, this will help in convincing nurses to stay in the Philippines and persuade other nurses abroad to come back and serve the country. Another solution that I think will be useful is to provide nursing scholarship similar to the Medical Scholarship and Return Service Program of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The MSRS scholarship program provides full scholarships to Filipino medical students, requiring mandatory service in underserved areas in return. Since we are experiencing a nursing shortage, a similar scholarship for nurses will help in increasing the nurse workforce.

University of the Philippines Manila, a public university considered as one of the top health sciences university in the Philippines, also has a Return Service Agreement. All graduates of its health science colleges (Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Allied Medical Professions, and Public Health) must serve in the Philippines for at least two years within five years of graduation. I think all state universities and colleges should consider implementing a similar return service agreement for health graduates. Since we are scholars of the people, we have a duty to serve our fellow Filipinos.

Lastly, I would like to share an article from Business Mirror, titled, “Healing the world, bleeding at home: The Philippines’ nurse drain crisis”. I think it is a well-written article about the nursing crisis in our country.
Here is the link of the article:
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2026/02/02/healing-the-world-bleeding-at-home-the-philippines-nurse-drain-crisis/

Myanmar is facing a serious health workforce shortage. Even before the military coup, the number of doctors, nurses, and midwives was already below standard. After the coup, the situation became much worse. Many health workers left the public system due to safety risks, system disruption, low pay, and stress. Training programs were interrupted and many facilities cannot function normally, especially in rural and conflict-affected areas.

To improve the situation, we should strengthen EHOs and CBOs that are already serving people in conflict-affected areas across the country, since they are often the only active providers. They should receive more support in funding, medicines, training, and data systems. Other helpful steps include better pay and incentives for health workers, safer working conditions, more flexible training and bridging programs for students, task-shifting to community health workers, and wider use of telehealth. Partnerships with NGOs and international groups can also help keep essential services running and support workforce development.

In Myanmar, the health workforce faces two major challenges.
– Limited human resources – ongoing conflict and political crisis have reduced the number of available health staff, especially in border and ethnic areas.
– Lack of supplies – shortages of medicines, equipment, and basic resources make it difficult to operate effectively.
Suggestions for Improvement
– Mobilize health staff to restore collective services in border and non-government controlled areas, ensuring ethnic and liberation regions have access to care.
– Raise funds and aid to address supply shortages, focusing on medicines, equipment, and logistics support.