Medical staffs protest to remove public health minister

BANGKOK, March 20 (TNA) - Thai medical personnel have demanded that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra remove incumbent Public Health Minister Pradit Sintavanarong from office for his policy on waiving hardship allowances for those serving people in rural areas, which is alleged to discourage the medical personnel and to exacerbate the problem of brain drain to private hospitals. Dr. Kriangsak Watcharanukulkiart, President of Thailand's Rural Doctors' Society, told journalists on Wednesday that rural medical staff networks throughout the country have initially agreed to be dressed in black and to hold a mass rally at Bangkok's Government House on March 26 to call for the ouster of the public health minister. Dr. Kriangsak vowed if the incumbent public health minister was not removed by March 26, all medical personnel in rural areas nationwide, namely doctors, nurses and pharmacists, would carry on their protest to pressure his ouster under three agreed measures, including keeping themselves dressed in black, putting on banners calling for his ouster and denying all policies handed down by the incumbent health minister. Dr. Kriangsak announced that the rural medical staffs would also rally in front of the Government House on Tuesdays, when there are weekly Cabinet meetings, and would stop working, in a mass strike, during a long holiday period of the forthcoming Songkran or the traditional Thai New year Festival, from April 9-16, and that newly-graduated doctors--who are legally obliged to work in provincial areas--would be donned in black on every April 1, when they are to draw lots for rural zones they are to serve local patients for a certain period of time, and they might refuse to draw such lots. Dr. Vachira Bothpiboon, former president of the Rural Doctors' Society, who is now Director of Chumphuang Hospital in Nakhon Ratchasima province in the Thai Northeast, explained, meanwhile, that the hardship allowance for rural medical staffs, approved by the Cabinet, has been in place for over 30 years, at 2,200 baht monthly each, but the hardship allowance has been then raised since 2008, depending on the sizes and provincial areas of hospitals in which the medical personnel work and the number of years they are to serve rural patients. Based on the revised measures, Dr. Vachira acknowledged, rural medical staffs' satisfaction has increased, with about 300 of them having left private hospitals and having been back to work for public hospitals and resignation rates of rural medical staffs at public hospitals having been dropped but the number of medical specialists in rural areas having increased, as up to 20 per cent of the newly-graduated medical doctors have opted to keep working in the rural areas, instead of returning to metropolitan areas, after completing their government-bonded repayment period for every newly-graduated doctor. Dr. Vachira warned that the incumbent's Public Health's policy would only heighten the problem of shortages of medical staffs at Thailand's government-run hospitals. (TNA)