1.3 Overview of health care system in Thailand
Health care system in Thailand is an entrepreneurial health system with public and
private providers. Public health facilities were rapidly expanded nationwide since 1961
when Thailand launched the first five-year National Economic and Social Development
Plans (1961-1966). Private hospitals also play role in health services. However, they are
mostly in Bangkok and urban area. There are also wide spread of private clinics and
polyclinics in urban areas, most of them are owned and running out of hour by public
physicians. Since 1994, the numbers of hospitals and beds have been remarkably
increasing Bed to population ratio came up to 1:469 in 2004. While the doctor to bed
ratio has dropped from 1 : 15.3 in 1991 to 1 : 7 in 2004. Average bed occupancy ratio
was 73%, Number of health care personal i.e., Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses
has trended to gradually mount every year due to the strategy to increase emphasis on
training of qualified health care personnel in the national plans. Nevertheless the
distribution of health personnel still is one of major problems in Thailand. There was
significant different between Bangkok, the Capital of Thailand, and other provinces.
There are more doctors in Bangkok. The workload was lower for the doctors who worked
in other ministry hospitals or private hospitals rather than hospitals of the MoPH.