From the next fiscal year beginning on October 1, the Pathum Thani hospital will cease services to about 75,000 people registered under the scheme, Thammasat rector Surapol Nitikraipoj said.

Only critical patients and those referred by a smaller hospital will be accepted under the scheme where they are normally treated free of charge, he said.

Those Bt30 scheme patients who want to receive treatment at Thammasat University Hospital after September 30 will have to pay for it themselves, Surapol said.

Since joining the scheme in 2001, the hospital has been affected in many ways, the rector said. At the moment it is running a deficit of about Bt105 million, which has been solely accumulated through providing treatment to patients under the government scheme.

The hospital has maintained the same standards for all patients, including those registered under the scheme, and as a consequence was continually exceeding its budget from the National Health Security Office (NHSO).

Another fallout from the scheme was the university's medical education and research, he said. Medical students and teaching doctors were overwhelmed by the influx of patients.

"They don't have sufficient time to spend on study and research activities, which should be their priority," Surapol said.

The university was working with the NHSO to find other local hospitals to take the 75,000 patients.

Dr Sa-gnuan Nitayarumphong, secretary-general of the NHSO, said all affected patients would be transferred to the alternative hospitals in Pathum Thani.

Thammasat was not the first hospital to stop providing primary care. Chulalongkorn University and Mahidol University's Ramathibodi Hospital had also switched.