Thai Prime Minister, Srettha Thavisin, recently announced an overarching mandate for the country’s Health Minister, Cholnan Srikaew, to form a task force with a specific goal in mind – to enhance services in the country’s universal healthcare scheme. Government spokesperson, Chai Wacharonke, described how the prime minister’s primary focus was about making healthcare services more accessible to the general public.
The impending reforms to the healthcare scheme are poised to include abolishing the requirement for patients to first visit their assigned hospitals to receive medical attention. Instead, the plan is to revolutionize the system through digitizing the referral system, which will significantly reduce paperwork for patients wishing to be transferred to another treatment center. A referral document will still be necessary, however.
Wacharonke continued to stress how crucial it is to cut down on hospital waiting times while rolling out a home-delivery service for medication to eradicate the need to visit hospitals. These moves are intended to enhance customer convenience and play a part in reducing healthcare service costs substantially.
“Patients shouldn’t have to be mandated to visit their assigned hospitals. Just as those who possess a private health insurance policy have the privilege of visiting any hospital, the same should apply under this new patient-focused universal healthcare scheme,” Chai elaborated.
The ambitious Cholnan used the opportunity to update the Public Health Ministry executives, assuring them that he would provide more comprehensive details and share policy guidelines the next day. These policy guidelines are distributed evenly across 13 different implementation groups that coincidentally align flawlessly with the prime minister’s health policy rooted in efficiency.
Cholnan also expressed admiration towards the successful formation of a committee that will take on the substantial challenge of developing the national health system. The committee will be headed by the 61-year-old prime minister, with Dr Surapong Suebwonglee serving as its secretary. Its main responsibility will be to work jointly with other agencies to steer public health policy in the ideal direction.
The Health Minister also revealed plans to engage in meaningful dialogue with the Civil Service Commission (CSC) concerning personnel management and recruitment needs for the universal healthcare scheme. He suggested that the Ministry would advocate for new legislation to meet its manpower requirements efficiently.
“The Ministry will have a dedicated committee handling its manpower requirements, backed by a unique law that will liberate the Ministry from the constraints of CSC’s regulations,” he concluded, as reported by the Bangkok Post.
For regular updates, follow The Thaiger’s latest stories on our newly launched Facebook page HERE.
jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.mvp-feat-caption').insertAfter('.featured-area-inner'); });
Be First to Comment