Referral facilities ‘struggling to cope’
Cancer patients perform a traditional dance with medical personnel during a music therapy session at a hospital in Pathum Thani. (File photo)
Experts are urging the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to scrap the Cancer Anywhere (CA) programme after several major public hospitals reported operating losses due to the overwhelming number of patients requesting cancer treatment.
Introduced in 2021, the CA programme allows individuals who are subscribed to the universal healthcare scheme, also known as the 30-baht gold card programme, to choose where they would like to receive their treatment.
Initially, patients could only request treatment at the hospital or clinic that they were initially registered at, but this often led to delays in treatments, as many patients were registered in smaller and/or regional facilities that do not have the capacity to administer cancer treatments.
Under the CA scheme, cancer patients can receive treatment at any hospital registered with the NHSO and the costs of their treatment will be covered by the National Health Security Fund (NHSF), said a source.
Patients are only required to show their ID cards at registered hospitals to access the service, and the hospitals will claim the cost of their medical treatment from the fund.
Before the scheme was launched, if a patient had to be referred to another hospital, the hospital wh
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