Border hospitals in Tak face large bills for migrants, stateless people

The hospitals are located in Tha Song Yang, Mae Ramat, Phop Phra, Umphang and Mae Sot districts.

Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin visited Mae Sot Hospital on Friday to offer staff a morale boost, hear their healthcare plan and seek solutions to the “problem” of caring for migrants or stateless people who live on Thai soil but do not have access to basic rights. 

Rajata said these people were not able to pay for their treatment, and often kept away from doctors, which often made their conditions worse. If they suffered from a communicable disease, it could lead to an outbreak in the community if left untreated, he said. 

When this happens, the hospitals are affected as they end up having to shoulder a huge amount in medical costs that is not reimbursed, he said, adding that this problem required an urgent solution. Hospital staff were morally obliged to provide basic healthcare to sick people, he said, regardless of their race or nationality. 

He said most border hospitals have to take care of migrants, many of whom are stateless people from Myanmar. Rajata noted that only 20 to 30 per cent of these migrants have health security, because most are too poor to afford the ministry’s basic health security package. 

Last year, a total of 12,000 migrants, who had no health security, sought treatment at the five hospitals. This cost the hospitals a total of Bt110 million in medical expenses, of which Bt48 million was costs at Mae Sot Hospital, which caused the hospital to suffer liquidity problems. Rajata commended staff at the hospitals for making sacrifices for the sake of sick patients. 

In regard to communicable diseases along the border, malaria was the biggest problem, affecting 6,208 patients last year, 60 per cent of who were migrants. However, he said, the number of malaria infections and deaths had dropped by 50 per cent, which he credited to the setting up of 70 malaria screening-and-treatment teams on the Thai side and 700 such teams on the Myanmar side. 

The other diseases of concern on the border were tuberculosis (TB), diphtheria, elephantiasis, rabies and sexually transmitted diseases, he said. 

From 2007 to 2014, there have been 2,592 TB cases in this border area, 60 per cent of who were Myanmar nationals, he said, adding that a drug-resistant strain of the disease was also found in the area. 

A recent health check also showed that 164 Myanmar nationals living on the border had syphilis, two had elephantiasis, while 958 were pregnant, he said. This data, he said, would be used to formulate a strategy for disease prevention and health promotion for stateless people so the number of ill people can be reduced. 

As healthcare officials encounter communication problems, the ministry has solved this by getting 1,555 migrants to work as health promotion volunteers. Most of these volunteers, who were trained by the Department of Health, work at the 300 factories in Mae Sot district, while some 500 others are stationed at border villages.