Health Minister Orders Covid Hotline Capacity Increase

[webfact]

 

by Tanakorn Sangiam

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul has asked the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to increase the capacity of its 1330 Covid hotline to accommodate the increasing number of callers.

 

The NHSO said more than 70,000 calls were made to the 1330 hotline on 1 March. According to the current guideline, people who test positive for COVID-19 are asked to call this number to register for home isolation.

 

Minister Anutin said he had asked for a capacity increase and for more hospitals to provide outpatient treatments to infected people with mild to no symptoms. He said the current situation is different from that of last year. This year, Thailand has not seen a shortage of beds or vaccines, and that the country’s capacity to handle the virus is much greater.

 

Meanwhile, he said his ministry would be pressing ahead with the removal of mild COVID-19 cases from the Universal Coverage for Emergency Patients (UCEP) program. A proposal to do so will be presented to the Cabinet next week.

 

According to him, additional funding will need to be approved by the Cabinet to cover the treatments of yellow- and red-coded patients who require hospitalization, which will include treatments at private hospitals.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2022-03-04

 

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[RandiRona]

Buy Paxlovid from Pfizer and distribute it to people, dont wait for Sinaxlovid, as due to China shut down , CCPs copying capability is affected.

Edited March 4, 2022 by RandiRona

[internationalism]

Looks like thailand is catching up with telemedicine. 
Even a year ago this hotline centre was operating by traditional phones, not headphones with microphones, so 2 medics were necessary to do writing and searching through piles of papers with empty hospital beds. 
They were not using computers for it, all manual. 
Also this centre was manned by untrained volunteers and was permanently understaffed - understandable, if medics were doing very long shifts in hospitals on their payed job. 

[Will B Good]

I wonder.........how many on here have been in a position where they could simply order things to be done, without any consideration being given to what is involved in actually fulfilling the order?

 

With the possible exception of my wife I don't know anyone.

[Almer]

2 hours ago, Will B Good said:

I wonder.........how many on here have been in a position where they could simply order things to be done, without any consideration being given to what is involved in actually fulfilling the order?

 

With the possible exception of my wife I don't know anyone.

Ditto

[mr_lob]

Well that's easy. Don't call

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul has asked the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to increase the capacity of its 1330 Covid hotline to accommodate the increasing number of callers.

Seems Anutin has dropped the ball again, surely the need for this service was predicted and should have been 3 months ago.

[Caldera]

Speeding up the boosters should be an even higher priority.

[Clarkey611]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

The NHSO said more than 70,000 calls were made to the 1330 hotline on 1 March.

How many of these 70,000 were answered?

[sambum]

32 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Seems Anutin has dropped the ball again, surely the need for this service was predicted and should have been 3 months ago.

Correct - it's just Anutin trying to look good again.

 

I have never understood the man's logic - it's like he's playing "catchup" all the time, but at the same time making out that he is so much "on the ball". Why should people with few or very mild symptoms ever have been dragged off to hospital/quarantine in the first place? - taking up beds that could have been used by genuinely sick people - and not just those infected with Covid. 

 

Also, as has been mentioned before, the logic of having to wear a mask on a motor bike eludes me completely! Up to 20,000 baht fine, whereas the fine for not wearing a helmet/no insurance is a few hundred baht!  

 

"This year Thailand has not seen a shortage of beds or vaccines"

 

Why was there a shortage in the first place? Was it because he and his Health Department thought that the hot winds of Songkran would blow it away?

 

Or was it because he wanted to strike a deal with the Chinese for a vaccine that has turned out to be almost useless? ("Our Chinese friends will have a vaccine by then")

 

Or was it because if he held out long enough, other countries would give Thailand millions of doses for free? (But while he was waiting for the "freebies", Buddha alone knows how many people caught the virus)

 

And a short time ago he was saying how Thailand and his Department in particular had done such a wonderful job in tackling the problem, and that the situation was "completely under control". So how come he needs to increase the capacity for people to report that they have Covid symptoms? 

 

I could go on and on, but I don't have the time or the inclination - I'm going to have a beer on the balcony instead!

[spidermike007]

Is this some sort of an admission of failure? He recently said Thailand was #1 in the world, in it's response to Covid. We all knew it was a rather outlandish thing to say at the time, but we also know this man has no shame, he is a great huckster, and would say or do anything to avoid taking responsibility for the disaster he is at least partly responsible for. 

 

He should have resigned, or been replaced in March of 2020, after Covid broke out. He was in way over his head long before Covid came around. He lacks experience, a background in the health field, and the only reason he was appointed, and is still in this position, is due to the power and the influence he has over his party. There is NO other reason. You completely blew the vaccination program! You blew the response to Covid! You blew the response to the outbreak in Samut back in December, which led to the 2nd wave! What have you gotten right? It now appears the lack of cases during the 1st wave was dumb luck. 
 
Do the people of Thailand finally see how they have been misled, mishandled, bamboozled, forsaken, and abused by the hapless army, and the goons in charge? If they could not see it before, it is so obvious now. 99% of the Thais I talk to are so far beyond fed up. And if the 3-5% who drank the kool-aid still believed, after this latest covid debacle, Prayuth, Anutin and the gang have been truly unmasked to a humiliating and inglorious degree.
 
Who could possibly still have any faith in their competence, and sincerity, at this point? 
 
These fools are actually contemplating a space program, when they cannot even get it together to set up multiple vaccine center locations, and they could not even plan sufficiently to have a large enough quantity of GOOD vaccines ready for when they are needed? Shame on you. Shame on you for your continued lies, deflections, blame, and labels. You behave like an infant. You are despised to no end. You are hated, disrespected, likely have an approval rating of less than 1%, and have less than zero credibility, just like your creepy boss. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by spidermike007

[Birdseye]

Wow....strong words and a fair explanation ...but if you really believe only 1% of Thais are not fed up then my guess is you live and work in Bangkok and deal with educated Thais only...not  rural Thailand... in other words my friend I think you are out of touch and at worst delusional ....no offence meant 

[sambum]

8 minutes ago, Birdseye said:

Wow....strong words and a fair explanation ...but if you really believe only 1% of Thais are not fed up then my guess is you live and work in Bangkok and deal with educated Thais only...not  rural Thailand... in other words my friend I think you are out of touch and at worst delusional ....no offence meant 

"only 1% of Thais are not fed up"

 

Doesn't fit in with the rest of your post, or am I reading it wrong?

 

Are you saying that in rural Thailand Anutin is liked and highly respected because he is a politician?

[mtls2005]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

more than 70,000 calls were made to the 1330 hotline on 1 March

 

Wow!

 

 

Amazing that so many people know what number to call, and that feel this is their only option.

 

Bit of a failure if you ask me.

 

Can't se throwing more CSRs at the problem will work? They'll need to be trained.

 

I'd get that 1 million person volunteer health force in action.

 

 

 

 

[thailand49]

Might notify Pattaya there is very little home isolation everyone going down in general to B Hospital no test go home pack a bag come back tomorrow to be quarantine at hotel for 10 days. 

[Ginner]

8 hours ago, RandiRona said:

Buy Paxlovid from Pfizer and distribute it to people, dont wait for Sinaxlovid, as due to China shut down , CCPs copying capability is affected.

We are talking about a country where its citizens go to the emergency department of a hospital and sit there for 2 or 3 hours before seeing a doctor if they have a headache!. So of course they need more covid hot lines.

[MrJ2U]

Depending on volunteers  to do such a demanding and mentally taxing job is probably a bad choice.

 

 

Paying people to do that job  would help everyone. 

 

Get half the police force and TAT  employees to rotate 300-400 positions in the call center. 

 

 

[jojothai]

Wow 70,000

But its now 4th march and the reported numbers are far lower.

So whats going on? ????????????

Is that why we hear predictions that cases could rise to 50,000 to 100,000.

Perhaps well before april.

 

 

[Dumbfounded]

5 hours ago, Clarkey611 said:

How many of these 70,000 were answered?

It was probably only 10 people that kept redialing after being cut off on hold ????

[hotchilli]

11 hours ago, sambum said:

I could go on and on, but I don't have the time or the inclination - I'm going to have a beer on the balcony instead!

Don't slip....????

[sambum]

11 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Don't slip....????

Ist floor - no plomplem! ????

 

[sambum]

20 hours ago, Ginner said:

We are talking about a country where its citizens go to the emergency department of a hospital and sit there for 2 or 3 hours before seeing a doctor if they have a headache!. So of course they need more covid hot lines.

Every time I am feeling unwell - either self induced hangover or a bit of a stomach upset - regardless of what time of day or night it is, my Thai wife's response is "Go see doctor?"  

[big dendrobenaes]

a couple of weeks ago this guy stated the covid was under control.......and bragging that he was the guy who had made it be under control !!!!