Big chunk of medical budget spent on migrants

[rooster59]

Big chunk of medical budget spent on migrants

By THE NATION

 

 

THE Public Health Ministry has spent nearly 50 per cent of its Bt2.255 billion budget in providing medical treatments to foreign migrants in 31 border provinces across the country from January to June, according to Health Promotion Centre Region 5 inspector-general Dr Pisit Sriprasert.

 

Dr Pisit said the unreimbursed expenditure amounted to Bt1.1 million. The situation has prompted officials to implement a new action plan by establishing provincial-level border public health offices to handle related work including the financial management in various forms such as healthcare cards for border pass holders, a Bt2,700 per head annual health insurance for migrant workers, as well as setting up a border health fund and special budget allocation to reduce the burden on hospitals, Pisit said.

 

The Health Promotion Centre Region 5, which covers Kanchanaburi, Ratchaburi, Phetchaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan provinces, catered to 213,130 foreign migrants – of whom 102,531 were migrant workers, 76,407 were persons whose nationality was unclear and 34,192 were born in Thailand but had not obtained Thai nationality. Also, an unknown number of foreigners crossed the border for short-term stays, Pisit said. 

 

The treatment costs on migrants in these four provinces amounted to Bt425 million from October 2017 to June 2018 but 52.6 per cent or Bt223 million became outstanding debt, he said. Ratchaburi alone had treated 136,881 foreign migrants, at a cost of Bt141 million, of which 42.64 per cent or Bt60 million were not recovered.

Pisit also said that the Health Promotion Centre Region 5 had four key issues:

 

1 The high fatality rates of mother and newborn babies;

 

2 Some people seeking treatments did not belong to any health security scheme hence the hospitals/healthcare facilities had to shoulder the expenses and had a problem in patient referral;

 

3 Some disease epidemics such as tuberculosis and malaria because of inconsistent treatments, which also led to drug-resistant germs, and a vaccine shortage;

 

4 The smuggling of unsafe or illegal health products in and out across border.

 

Pisit reported the information to Deputy Prime Minister General Chatchai Sarikulya during his visit on Thursday to Suan Phung District Hospital in Ratchaburi province, as it was a good model for medical facilities in managing and aiding people including foreign migrants. 

 

Chatchai noted that the issue of budget was a persistent one that the government had to tackle via existing systems. He said the Suan Phung District Hospital took care of the locals while also treating migrants with or without collecting payments for expenses on the humanitarian principle. 

 

Suan Phung District Hospital director Dr Chatthakorn Thanyakiat said the facility supported 60,341 people in the area. They include 27,225 Thais under the universal healthcare scheme, 4,363 Thais under the social security scheme, 1,933 people with civil service health coverage, 16,299 persons pending verification of Thai nationality, 6,700 residents of a refugee camp, 832 migrant workers, and 2,989 “stateless people” – the most frequent visitors at 24,000 times per year – resulting in Bt2.4 million of unrecovered payments.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30348415

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-06-23

[tracker1]

Thailand the land of blame ! blame everyone else except Thais

[JAG]

Am I being particularly dense, (it has been suggested before) or do these figures not add up?

 

It is a bit difficult to discern through the clouds of xenophobia starting to swirl around...

[Lungstib]

The hidden costs of cheap labour. To extract every last baht of profit from their enterprise's employers desire migrant labour because its cheaper than Thai. The medical bill should get passed to them but instead just gets dumped on the govt. All hospitals around me on the Burma border are cram packed at 8 a.m. every day with Shan and hilltribes making up much of the crowd. The husband is out working for 250b a day, his wife and child are looking for medical help. 

Edited June 23, 2018 by Lungstib
spelling error

[George Bowman]

13 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

providing medical treatments to foreign migrants in 31 border provinces across the country

I have only been to a handful of the border towns and every time, there has been a constant stream of sick people headed to the clinic. 

[Lupatria]

...and most of Thailand's sumptuous rice is consumed by migrant workers free of charge.

[Sir Dude]

Ah, yes, blame someone other than yourselves as usual. Can't have your cake and eat it. I wonder too, how much is embezzled away to private accounts each year by corrupt managers/directors in the health service in all kinds of sneaky scams? 

[55Jay]

I don't understand the negative comments to this article calling attention to the costs of providing un-reimbursed government medical care to migrants.   Some of the comments sound like an attempt to deflect using the xenophobe/racist card. 

[robblok]

8 hours ago, JAG said:

Am I being particularly dense, (it has been suggested before) or do these figures not add up?

 

It is a bit difficult to discern through the clouds of xenophobia starting to swirl around...

Your not dense .. it does not add up. It suggest they are talking about he total health budget. But I can not imagine the total health budget to be only 2.2 billion. I read figures of 193 billion in 2017 in a BKK post article. I think they are taking things out of context and that the 2.2 billion is some local border health budget not the total one. 

 

I hate it when they make people think things are worse then they are. This would certainly stir up xenophobia. 

[Expatthailover]

11 hours ago, tracker1 said:

Thailand the land of blame ! blame everyone else except Thais

Oh the irony.

[Dave67]

A big chunk of nothing

[Srikcir]

14 hours ago, Lungstib said:

The medical bill should get passed to them but instead just gets dumped on the govt.

The Bt2,700 per head annual health insurance for migrant workers should be covered by the employer. If the employer can't maintain a profitable business (for which otherwise must reduce the workforce) covering operating expenses, survival of the business is not the government's responsibility.

[thaiguzzi]

20 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

Ah, yes, blame someone other than yourselves as usual. Can't have your cake and eat it. I wonder too, how much is embezzled away to private accounts each year by corrupt managers/directors in the health service in all kinds of sneaky scams? 

Agreed.

I don't trust any of these "budget" stories anymore.

Corruption is more rife now than ever before.

The civil service at management level in the last 4 years has become rotten to the core.

Absolute zero accountability, bar the odd "fell onto it by accident" whistleblower.

Every manager for himself and how much he can screw out of the system.

[robblok]

14 hours ago, Srikcir said:

The Bt2,700 per head annual health insurance for migrant workers should be covered by the employer. If the employer can't maintain a profitable business (for which otherwise must reduce the workforce) covering operating expenses, survival of the business is not the government's responsibility.

The legal immigrants, are they not paying into the system just like the Thais ? If so then what is the problem of them medical care.

[Cadbury]

On 6/23/2018 at 7:12 AM, rooster59 said:

THE Public Health Ministry has spent nearly 50 per cent of its Bt2.255 billion budget

The Public Health Ministry budget of 2.25 billion baht is chicken feed compared to the 100 billion baht Thai Niyom free electioneering money being spent by the PM. Things need to be taken in context.

For some uncaring military type people, winning the next election and staying in power is more important than the health of the people.