Dr. Narong Saiwongse, deputy permanent secretary for Public Health, has praised the National Health Security Office’s (NHSO) Long-Term Care Fund as a good solution to Thailand’s aging society. In his view, the LTC Fund practically increases the quality of life among both the elderly and dependent patients. “Because no ageing society can avoid dependent people, it is necessary to develop service system for the dependent. We need to do this to ensure people losing their independence can still have quality of life,” Dr. Narong told the LTC Forum 2020. Held by the Human Resources for Health Research and Development Office (HRDO) as a part of its project to learn from the LTC Fund management, the event ran from November 17 to 18, 2020 under the Moving together to Sustainable LTC theme. The Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) has funded this project. The NHSO established the LTC Fund in 2016 to take care of dependent elderly. Thanks to the fund, long-term care has been provided to people who cannot perform activities of daily living on their own and need help from others. The LTC fund has used local administrative bodies namely subdistrict administrative organizations and subdistrict municipalities as key mechanisms for...

Regulations on community-public health profession: Promulgated in the Royal Gazette they prescribe the criteria of community-public health practitioners, basic health assessments, and basic treatments. On 21 July 2020, the Royal Gazette made announcements on three legislation related to community-public health professions. Firstly, the Public Health Ministry’s Regulation on Basic Treatment Limitations of B.E. 2563 stipulates that community-public health practitioners must hold a valid license of community-public health profession. They cannot practice in events that their license is suspended/revoked or expires. Practitioners of community-public health must provide basic treatments in accordance with the Council of Community-Public Health’s regulation on limitations and conditions of practice as well as professional standards. Secondly, the Council of Community-Public Health’s Regulation on Criteria and Conditions of Basic Health Assessments, Basic Treatments, Patient Care, Immunization, and Family Planning of B.E. 2563 specifies which diseases community-public health practitioners can assess and provide treatments for. Among them are high fever, stomachache, malnutrition, skin problems, oral ulcers, resuscitation, and emergency child deliveries. Thirdly, the Council of Community-Public Health’s Regulation on Criteria and Conditions of Basic Health Assessments for Patient Referrals of B.E. 2563 requires that community-public health practitioners refer patients to better-equipped facilities and inform them/their relatives of the referral...

Thailand is now upgrading its primary-healthcare system in terms of quality and accessibility via the initiative to assign three doctors to each family. The three-doctor policy recognizes a village health volunteer as the first doctor for providing healthcare services at community level, an official of a district health promotion hospital as the second doctor for giving healthcare at sub-district level, and a family physician as the third doctor for delivering services at district level. The policy seeks to ensure these three doctors work together systematically, making further progress from the universal coverage healthcare scheme. The Human Resources for Health Research and Development Office interviews Dr. Samrerng Yangkratoke, vice minister for Public Health, as he is the man behind this three-doctor policy.   How did the three-doctor policy start? The formulation of this policy started because we wanted to develop the country’s healthcare system further and we took account the opinions of many. First of all, we paid attention to a goal mentioned at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Astana back in 2018. Developed based on the Alma Mater Declaration on primary-healthcare development, that goal demands that every country create primary-healthcare sustainability for its people. Secondly, we paid attention...