Abstract
Ministry of Public Health had put many efforts to solve shortage and manage distribution of dentists
in community hospitals by initiating special allowances based on geographical locations, hardship
conditions and working hours. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of additional hardship allowance
for dentists who were working in community hospitals. The study used secondary data from two sources and compared between 2009 and 2013. The first data source was dentists in community hospitals from the
Bureau of Dental Health database between 2009 and 2013 that were used for estimating the budget for the
hardship allowance. The second dataset was derived from performance and productivity of dental
workforce from Department of Health Service Support between 2009 and 2013.
The results revealed that the number of dentists in community hospitals was 2,638 in 2013, compared
to 1,859 in 2009, or a 41.9% increase. Additionally, the budget of hardship allowance increased
28.1%, or by 168.6 million Baht; from 599.82 million Baht in 2009 to 768.4 million Baht in 2013. However,
52.7% of dentists who started working in community hospitals in 2009 for 1-3 years, had left community
hospital in 2013. Lastly, the productivity of dental health service in 2013 appeared a little higher than 2009
on average, 1,565 cases per dentist in 2013, a 12.3% increase from 2009. Nevertheless, only 25.6% of total
hospitals were able to achieve high performance standard of 1,840 cases per dentist per year. In conclusion,
the data suggested that the hardship allowance appeared to be unable to retain dentists who had 1-
3 years of experience to continue working in the community hospitals with little effect on productivity as
a few hospitals reached the standard level of quantity performance.
