NHSO budgets for Bt5,000 annual subsidy for each senior citizen
THE NATIONAL Health Security Office (NHSO) has budgeted Bt600 million to provide senior citizens with an annual subsidy of Bt5,000 each for their assisted care.
About Bt500 million would be allocated to a thousand major tambon-level or municipal-level NHSOs to distribute to 100,000 elderly people in the first year, Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn said yesterday.
The remaining Bt100 million would fund the care and illness prevention activities of a thousand community hospitals and tambon health promotion hospitals, said Piyasakol, who chairs the NHSO’s board.
Fiscal 2016 would see the launch of the elderly care scheme, starting with 100,000 bed-ridden seniors or 10 per cent of the target group. All dependent seniors would be covered within three years.
The healthcare package includes disease-screening tests, assessment of needs such as house visits, health promotion and disease prevention measures, physical therapy, activity therapy and medical appliances, he added.
Dr Prateep Thanakijcharoen, acting NHSO chief, said that under the three-year timeframe, the elderly care scheme would be expanded from 100,000 seniors in 2016 to 500,000 in 2017 and one million in 2018.
Next year, life quality development centres will begin operations in about 1,000 pilot tambons supervised by professional care managers and staffed by trained caregivers.
The centres would tailor individual care plans to each beneficiary, he said.
