Scrapping of Bt30 fee welcomed

BANGKOK: — Patients and doctors yesterday welcomed cancellation of the Bt30 fee for the government’s universal healthcare scheme.

Bang-orn Chandon, 51, who came to see doctors at Bung Khla Hospital, in the northeastern province of Nong Khai, said she was very glad she no longer had to pay the fee. She said the fee was a burden given the fact she visited hospitals quite frequently. And, compared to families for whom the Bt30 cost had already been waived, she said it was not fair - because her family was also poor. “Sometimes, when I didn’t have money, I just didn’t go to the doctors, although I was sick,” she said.

Dr Phatcharapha Ratan-phunkij, who works in the primary care unit at a hospital in Phu Kradung district in Loei, said the unit decided in 2002 not to collect the fee after realising it was a burden to those who did not have money. “We’d lost touch with many patients, not because they didn’t pay attention to their health, but because they could not afford to pay the travel costs or even the Bt30 fee,” she explained.

Dr Witaya Charuphunpol, the director of the Khon Kaen Central Hospital, said they had not seen a rise in the number of outpatients on the first day the hospital stopped collecting the fee, as some had predicted.

Meanwhile, Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said he had ordered the National Health Security Office to gather data to justify why the new per-capita budget should be increased to Bt2,089, from Bt1,659.

Mongkol said he would meet with Finance Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula again once the information was in hand to back approval of the proposed budget. However, if the Finance Ministry did not agree with the budget proposal, he said the health ministry would have to seek other solutions to make sure the new budget covered the loss caused by the cancellation of the Bt30 fee.

–The Nation 2006-11-02

 

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