Many doors still closed to capital's sick, poor
Play
The 43-year-old man was sleeping on Bangkok's streets without a home and without hope.
His emaciated body, constant vomiting and diarrhoea clearly testified to his frail health, but no help was forthcoming from a hospital designated to provide free medical treatment for men like him.
Chukiat Sittipaisanseri collapsed in a chair in the waiting room of the privately run hospital in Min Buri district last Friday.
Doctors and nurses had paid little attention to him.
“We sent him there in the hope of ensuring he could get the medical treatment he needed. But at the hospital, he was sent to an X-ray room and nothing more,” Sittipon Chuprajong of the Mirror Foundation said.
Although the hospital is a private facility, it has participated in the government-initiated universal healthcare scheme.
Sittipon tried to fight for Chukiat’s right to treatment at the hospital but an on-duty doctor simply said he could find no indication the patient needed treatment.
“I asked whether the hospital would pay attention to just the haves, not the have-nots. He asked back if I had money,” Sittipon complained.
Such sad cases, according to stories told among friends and acquaintances, are not uncommon. Even after the government promised access to healthcare for all, the underprivileged still battle against diseases very much on their own.
To the homeless like Chukiat, the battle is bitter. It was, most of the time, lonely.
His plight caught the attention of the Mirror Foundation after someone alerted this charity organisation about the ailing man on Bangkok streets.
“We went to check on him and found him languishing on Sukhumvit Soi 38,” Sittipon said.
After his decision to send Chukiat to the private hospital did not deliver the intended result, Sittipon called the Prachabodi Centre for help. The centre has been operating under the supervision of the Social Development and Human Security Ministry.
“He’s in serious condition,” the centre’s social worker Mongkhon Srisang said.
He too wondered why the private hospital had decided not to provide treatment for Chukiat.
