Thailand'S Universal Health Coverage Scheme At Risk

[citizen33]

During a week when hundreds of international experts gathered at the Prince Mahidol Award Conference in Bangkok to discuss the success of Thailand’s universal health coverage scheme (UCS), changes in the top echelons of the Thai health care administration threaten to put the UCS at risk. Pro-reformists were dismayed when Public Health Minister Wittaya Buranasiri appointed new experts to the National Health Security Office board, who are known to favour an expansion of private hospital provision and the policies of the Ministry of Health conservatives. The reformists fear increases in the percentage of budgets allocated to inpatient hospital care, a loss of monies for preventive and promotive services, a concentration of resources in the larger hospitals of the central region, and more use of the branded rather than generic drugs that big pharma want to sell. A source close to Government has let it be known that the current Director-General of NHSO, a strong supporter of pro-poor policies, is unlikely to be reappointed for a second term.

Could it be that the pro-big business elements in the Yingluck government are flexing their muscles and that, under the guiding influence of PReMA, the private health industry and the Medical Council of Thailand, ministers are about to undo the good work of 2001-02 and so betray their rural constituency? How will the red shirted people of the rural north and Isaan, who gave so much for Puea Thai, react when they discover that the new settlement between the elites puts their free health care in doubt?

Some snippets are out and more of this story will break soon.

http://www.bangkokpo...-80000-families

Edited January 28, 2012 by citizen33