ThaiHealth to have new focus

THE NEW Thai Health Promotion Foundation’s (ThaiHealth) chief said yesterday he had plans to develop the organisation into a professional healthcare supporter. 

At the same time, there were still uncertainties about the delay of project funding and tax problems among ThaiHealth partners.

Dr Supreda Adulyanon, newly appointed ThaiHealth chief executive officer, speaking for the first time since his appointment last month said his policy was to develop professional health promotion, which was more straightforward and systematic. He would try to make it clear to the public what ThaiHealth did and was trying to achieve. 

“ThaiHealth was set up 15 years ago with no organisation to follow. Health promotion was a new concept for Thai society, so the first years of the organisation were an age of trial and error,” Supreda said. “Now, we have gained enough experience in health promotion work with Thai society, so the next stage of our health promotion will be more professional.”

He said that ThaiHealth would scope the health promotion work to be clearer and more organised. It would also be reformed to work more professionally, based on strict inspection and transparency.

On project funding delays, which caused more than 2,000 projects sponsored by ThaiHealth to cease operations, he admitted they were still unable to unlock funding for all projects – even though ThaiHealth had amended its funding regulations.

“We are very sorry for our partners. We are doing our best to continue the funding again, but more procedures have been added to the funding consideration process which caused the disruption and extended the delay to beyond the timeframe of three months,” he said. However, he said the funding suspension was still active for projects which cost more than Bt5 million.

On Tuesday, the Thai Health Promotion Movement – together with many affected public organisations – went to the Public Health Ministry to hand in a petition on the ThaiHealth issue to Public Health Minister Dr Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn.

Earlier, the Revenue Department tried to collect tax retrospectively for up to five years on all sponsorships ThaiHealth had granted to public organisations to carry out the project. 

Supreda said ThaiHealth was now discussing with Revenue Department ways out of this difficulty. “This is the problem of disparity in interpretation of the law. We have already talked once with the deputy director of the Revenue Department about this issue and we are going to have more discussions,” he said. He admitted the tax problem might not be solved easily in the next few months and he hoped the Revenue Department would understand the work procedures of ThaiHealth. The organisation is also seeking seven new ThaiHealth specialist board members.