Geriatric medicine unit to be national model

[webfact]

Geriatric medicine unit to be national model
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- THE Public Health Ministry marked National Day of Older People yesterday by vowing to speedily turn the Supreme Patriarch Nyanasanwara Geriatric Medicine Institute into a national prototype for medical treatment for the elderly.

The move is in response to forecasts that Thailand will become an ageing society by 2025, meaning 20 per cent of its population will be elderly.

Thailand had just over 10 million elderly people according to a report by the National Statistical Office last year and that total is rising by 500,000 a year, Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin said.

He said 95 per cent of the elderly had chronic health issues, ageing ailments or mental health problems, especially depression. As Thailand would become an ageing society by 2025, the government had to prepare for that to ensure the elderly had good quality of life, he said.

This year, the ministry is taking care of seniors through four schemes:

Providing free dental checks and free false teeth or dental implants after a survey found 250,000 elderly Thais had no teeth;

 Arranging a long-term care system for dependent seniors via training 500 care managers and 2,500 caregivers;

Adding 15,000 family care teams to visit bed-ridden seniors at home, raising the number to 30,000 by the end of the year;

Organising health promotion activities for middle-aged people to give them a better chance of becoming healthy seniors.

As part of the national elderly plan (2002-2021), three strategies were implemented - preparing citizens for quality ageing; promoting the establishment of elderly clubs in all sub-districts and 818 elderly clinics at state-run hospitals; and providing a social protection system for the elderly including better access to ramps and secured toilets.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Geriatric-medicine-unit-to-be-national-model-30257997.html


-- The Nation 2015-04-14

[fred Kubasa]

All good intentions but, so far, little/no implementation ! Sound familiar ?

I promise, we will soon, Cabinet gives "nod " to, etc., all just hot air !

[Godders]

And we Brits always thought the NHS was the envy of the world!

My wife's middle-aged mum is doing cartwheels at the prospect of the care and goodies coming her way when she reaches retirement age. But I've warned her not to start counting her chickens - at least not until she gets her free laser surgery on the THS.

Nowhere, in this fanciful vision of what Thai geriatric healthcare will look like in the future, is there any mention of the cost of providing such uncharacteristically generous and compassionate treatment - and where the money is coming from..

Does anyone seriously believe that hard-working Thais, who struggle to pay their own medical bills, will accept a tax hike to provide millions of retired wrinklies with freebies like dental implants costing a couple of thousand quid a time?

Time for a reality check at the Ministry for Public Health - or for more of us ageing expats to apply for Thai citizenship!

[Langsuan Man]

Until they change the drug laws to allow stronger narcotics I dread getting old here in Thailand

They are so scared of drug abuse they would rather allow the old to suffer in pain, another unintended consequence of the war on drugs