Doctor welcomes border plan

But she warned that many foreign workers, like the 250,000 in Tak, still had difficulty in accessing Thai public health services, due to a lack of documents and the shortage of health facilities in some areas. 

Speaking at a seminar on trans-national healthcare, Maung said Thailand’s border healthcare plan (2012-2016) was a good incentive for stronger health cooperation in Thai-Myanmar border areas, and she urged Myanmar to improve its healthcare system.

She revealed that her Mae Tao Clinic in Tak’s Mae Sot district last year helped 3,000 Myanmar women to give birth after they fled Myanmar’s poor mother-child healthcare system. 

Maung pointed out that the clinic was in a good position to liaise between Thailand and Myanmar on caring for undocumented migrant workers after the Asean Economic Community (AEC) comes into effect in 2015. She said 63 per cent of patients at the Mae Tao Clinic were referred from Myanmar. Last year about 10 per cent of them were passed on to the better-equipped Mae Sot Hospital, which shoulders about Bt10 million in medical expenses.

The clinic also works on disease prevention among children whose parents cross the border to work in Thailand – especially by cooperating with local hospitals to vaccinate them, she said. The clinic has joined with Umphang Hospital in a contagious-diseases monitoring programme.

Prominent health expert Dr Wichai Chokwiwat praised Mae Tao Clinic for lessening Thai hospitals’ burden by thousands of patients per year.