Health4Us
Together for better health
Insight from different perspectives
4 perspectives in healthcare value-chain
Hospital
The capacity of doctors is insufficient compare to the number of hospitals especially in public hospitals while the numbers of patients have a significant increase. The hospitals in the rural area are having problem of insufficient medical equipment, and lack of confidence for treating their patients. In this case, they likely would transfer risks of some cases to the main hospitals. As a result, the main hospitals do not have enough capacity supporting incoming patients.
Patients
The patients choose to either buy medicine from pharmacy to cure the fundamental symptoms or go to the clinics for treatment despite having the right to use 30-baht program provided by government. The patients do not want to waste a lot of time travelling and queuing at the listed hospital if the expenses are not too high. However, the patients sometimes live far away from clinics and hospitals which have no reach of public transportation as well. They prefer to wait for their family members to endorse them to the hospital. In some case, their family has some business in town, they would ask for a car pool and visit the doctor together. Thus, personal car is necessary transport to help patients access to healthcare in many areas.
Related Organizations
The commitment of supporting rural doctors and government public health departments has shown another perspective of healthcare accessibility. He views that the number of doctors in rural area has not much increased because they prefer specialist study more than family practitioners. Currently, both general doctors and family doctors are not enough to serve the small hospitals and medical centers. Thus, the government tries to promote the field of family doctors to attract more doctors in the rural areas, targeting to solve people’s behavior as it is cause root of health problem. In terms of specialized doctors, the government and foundation view that the number of specialized doctors are increasing compared to the previous days. They think that the number of doctors will be enough to cover all of the areas.
The foundation mainly boost up motivation towards doctors in rural area. They have the team to work on site and visit patients and they would get rewards in return. The issue of working in rural areas is no wage provided, distance from home, and uncomfortable living lifestyle.
Clinic
The clinics view themselves as convenient channels for patients to access to medical treatment. Most of their patients are children whom most parents agree to take them to get urgent treatment and will not waste their time to getting risks.. On the other hand, the parents often tolerate their sickness and buy medicine at pharmacy by themselves. The condition that leads this segment travelling for clinic treatment relates to the serious level of illness which pharmacy medicine could not cure such serious or chronically symptoms. They come to clinics only because they want some advices. Most of the patients have average income approximated low-average level. The affordable rate or the price at their willingness per one time treatment costs at THB 500, however, the current rate of treatment possibly reach the minimum price of THB 2,000 or above. According to expenditure conditions, some clinics credits to patients based on trust, by paying instalment without interest charge. This could be applied to some patients only.
Despite the physical location and the convenient accessibility, the patients prefer the recommended places for treatment based on "words of mouth"; thus, they effort to travel from far away distance to the clinics.