The Public Health Ministry has agreed that state hospitals should continue registering new patients seeking treatment under the universal healthcare scheme.
Public Health Minister Rachata Rachatanavin says the ministry's permanent secretary's office has agreed that state hospitals will continue registering new patients under the universal healthcare scheme. (ฺฺBangkok Post file photo)
The move ended the conflict between the ministry’s permanent secretary's office (PSO) and the National Health Security Office (NHSO).
Public Health Minister Rachata Rachatanavin on Thursday said the PSO and the NHSO had agreed during a recent meeting that state hospitals under the PSO would carry out the task of registering new members of the universal healthcare (gold card) scheme.
Under the agreement, permanent secretary for health Narong Sahametapat and NHSO secretary-general Winai Sawasiworn will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) regarding the registration of new gold-card holders, said Dr Rachata.
The PSO oversees 884 state hospitals nationwide, while the NHSO runs the universal healthcare scheme, which covers some 48 million members.
Earlier, the two key players in the country’s healthcare sector were at loggerheads over the budget management for the universal healthcare scheme. Their latest conflict broke out when the PSO issued an order to state hospitals nationwide to stop registering new patients, effective April 30. This order would affect at least 800,000 newborns a year and millions of new patients,
The order came after the NHSO had refused to comply with the PSO’s demands to stop channeling the universal healthcare budget directly to hospitals and to send the money instead to be managed by the PSO’s regional offices.
The PSO had also come under fire from health activities who said its order had threatened the rights and welfare of patients.
The universal healthcare scheme, previously known as the 30-baht healthcare, was adopted by the Thaksin Shinawatra government in 2001 and became nationwide the next year, bringing millions of people who had in the past not been covered by any healthcare scheme into the social safety net.
Under the programme, every Thai can be treated at a state hospital and approved medical facility at the cost of 30 baht for each visit. The government pays the budget to each facility yearly based on the number of people registering to use it.
The scheme initially drew strong resistance from the medical profession, partly because it took away most of the budget normally going to the ministry and state hospitals, givnig it to the NHSO which in turn paid them by the number of patients they actually treated.