UHC has well prepared Thailand for coping with COVID-19

Claiming more than 5.3 million lives worldwide so far, the COVID-19 pandemic is now seen as one of the world’s most challenging health threats. And how well each country can cope with the pandemic is a testament to how effective the healthcare system of each nation actually is when all of a sudden encountering this major health crisis. 

Many countries have seen their healthcare systems being overwhelmed by a surge in number of COVID-19 infected patients requiring life-saving treatment and care. And sad but true even those developed countries with a world leading healthcare system before the pandemic were left with no choice but to choose who were to be given the treatment and who would have to wait even though they couldn’t actually wait.

The world has learned two key lessons from dealing with COVID-19 over the past two years, said Dr Jos Vandelaer, the WHO Representative to Thailand, addressing a seminar entitled “UHC: The key system to fight COVID-19 and build back better”.

The seminar was jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Health Security Office (NHSO) at the Ministry of Public Health, marking the International Universal Health Coverage Day on Dec 12, 2021.

In his point of view, one important lesson is many countries around the world weren’t really ready for handling the pandemic despite a warning sign that the new coronavirus would likely trigger a new pandemic when it started spreading in China by late 2019.

A second important lesson learned is countries with a strong healthcare system are more capable of managing to control an outbreak of the coronavirus than those with a less strong healthcare system, said Dr Vandelaer.

Not only being more capable of coping with a COVID-19 epidemic, countries with a significant healthcare system can also manage to ensure the continuity of other healthcare services while dealing with COVID-19 infections, he said.

“Speaking of health security, we certainly are referring to the ability to cope well with a crisis like an outbreak, which in this case means having universal health coverage,” he said. “Universal health coverage comprises three elements, namely access to services, affordable prices and quality of services. Thailand has all these three components.”

The country has sufficient funds to invest in the development of the public health infrastructure, a strong healthcare workforce, enough budget and an efficient supply chain to prepare to cope with any new outbreaks, he said.

Dr Phusit Prakongsai, a health promotion expert with the Office of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health, meanwhile, pointed out that there are six factors contributing to Thailand’s success in containing COVID-19.

They are strong leadership in all organisations making decisions based on scientific evidence, the government’s management system for fast adapting to a changing situation, adequate public health resources, previous experiences in handling outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus, continuity of and transparency in communication with the public, and public participation in containing the spread of the virus, he said.


For Dr Jadej Thammatacharee, secretary-general of the NHSO, COVID-19 has in a way led to the NHSO and all other healthcare units being required to adjust the way they work such as in providing healthcare to all COVID-19 patients free of charge in disregard of their healthcare rights.

No matter which healthcare scheme these patients are registered in, they can receive free treatment and care for COVID-19 at the hospitals receiving reimbursement from the NHSO for the healthcare services they offer to these patients.

Other healthcare innovations the NHSO has created or adopted for use during the past waves of the COVID-19 outbreak in Thailand include telemedicine and delivering medications to patients by mail, which are both aimed at maintaining patients’ access to necessary healthcare while they have to maintain social distancing as part of the government’s COVID-19 restrictions, said Dr Jadej.

Initially, the NHSO didn’t have its own budget to fund all these efforts to ensure public access to necessary healthcare during the coronavirus outbreak, he said, adding that the government had later approved an additional budget to finance the inclusion of additional healthcare benefits the NHSO is offering under its universal coverage scheme to both COVID-19 patients and non-COVID-19 patients.

Despite all these achievements, more challenges remain as the NHSO continues working towards improving the country’s healthcare system, he said.

Among them is the need to further develop a financial mechanism in preparation for handling future outbreaks and bring in place an integrated database containing health data from all healthcare schemes, he said.

Takahiro Morita, chief representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Thailand Office, meanwhile, pointed to the importance of transnational cooperation in a fight against a pandemic.

JICA, for one, has long been working together with Thailand in supporting the kingdom to build a strong healthcare system and campaigning to raise awareness about the importance of building up universal health coverage through international forums, he said.

In case of the COVID-19 outbreak, he said, the Japanese government has supported Thailand to cope better with the outbreak such as by donating more than 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and a number of oxygen generators for patients to Thailand.


Japanese experts and their Thai counterparts are also working together in developing a new disease diagnostic system, he said.
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