PACC to crack down on officials’ medical scams
PACC to crack down on officials’ medical scams
BANGKOK: — Many civil servants and military officers-both serving and retired- could face charges of fraud for exploiting government sponsored healthcare benefits.
An investigation revealed they had visited various state hospitals to claim expensive medicines.
“Doctors have told us that if they really used all the medicines they received, they would have been dead,” Pol Lt Colonel Somboon Sarasit said yesterday.
He is a senior official at the Office of Public-sector Anti-corruption Commission (PACC).
PACC has launched an investigation into how healthcare benefits among officials have been used because the healthcare-benefit scheme has required a suspiciously high budget.
According to the Comptroller General’s Department, the budget for the healthcare benefits has increased by at least 15 per cent a year despite a reduction in the number of officials.
As a welfare package, the government has offered its permanent officials, retired or current, and their families free medical treatment.
“Some of the benefit recipients have the government spending Bt1million or Bt2million a year on their medical bills,” PACC secretary general Pinyo Thongchai said.
He said the expensive medicines reimbursed were for heart diseases, high-blood pressure and diabetes.
“Some benefit recipients clearly visited many state hospitals so they could claim medicines time and again,” Pinyo said. He added that most of these questionable officials were from the armed forces.
“We have to step in otherwise honest officials and their families will be affected,” Pinyo said.
Somboon said the lack of an integrated online system among state hospitals was a loophole that allowed some officials to exploit the system.
“But the exploiters will be prosecuted,” he said.
