Healthcare for stateless sought

Healthcare for stateless sought

Civic groups in Chiang Rai have called on the Public Health Ministry to push the government into giving more than 200,000 people born in Thailand without Thai citizenship access to healthcare by April 1.

The groups also urged the extension of the ministry's "returning healthcare rights" scheme.

They handed their proposal to Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin, asking him to submit it to the cabinet for scrutiny.

The healthcare rights scheme was launched in 2010 by the Abhisit Vejjajiva  government to give healthcare access to 457,409 unregistered people — such as minorities and stateless groups — who were born in Thailand but not included on the demographic survey.

These people do not benefit from any of the government's health schemes, such as the Universal Coverage, Social Security or Civil Servants healthcare schemes.

Based on the ideas that minority and stateless people are eligible for healthcare from birth, the Abhisit scheme aimed to return healthcare rights to those who pass the nationality verification process and are granted citizenship.

According to the civic groups, more than 40,000 existing members of the healthcare scheme were granted Thai citizenship after the 2010 policy.

This made them eligible for one of the government's three healthcare schemes.

"There are at least 208,631 stateless people who are eligible for the scheme but are not included in it," said Wiwat Tamee of the Network of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand.

"Many of these people are relatives of those who have already been granted healthcare rights. We want the Public Health Ministry to include them in the 'returning healthcare rights' scheme, which will extend coverage to more than 620,000 people."

Extension of the scheme will require an additional 441 million baht of the state's annual budget.

Currently, existing scheme members cost the government 900 million baht a year.

The civic groups also want the Public Health Ministry to set up a 162-million-baht disease-control programme to support state hospitals in border provinces, Mr Wiwat said.

Border provinces carry a heavy financial burden by providing free-of-charge healthcare services to non-Thai citizens, he said.

The programme will cover basic healthcare for about 1.5 million non-Thais.

Meanwhile, Tuenjai Deetes, co-founder of the Hill Area Development Foundation, urged the Public Health Ministry to make Thais without full citizenship eligible for state healthcare.

"The Public Health Ministry must solve healthcare rights problems for Thais because these citizens are eligible for it under humanitarian principles." 

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