Call for SSO to cover psychosis
With an estimated 600,000 people suffering from psychosis across the country, the Social Security Office (SSO) needs to find a better way to care for them, according to Rachanee Manmethee, head of Srithanya Hospital's panel for the rights of psychotic patients.
"We are going to petition Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont on February 12," she said. Currently, the SSO has listed "psychosis" among diseases not covered by its schemes. Only in acute cases will the SSO offer up to Bt1,800 per day in financial assistance to compensate insured members for medical costs - and only for up to 15 days. In practice, free medical treatment is provided for psychotic patients who are not suffering from severe forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia. "Many insured members of the social-security scheme are suffering at the hands of this practice. Even though some of them can receive free treatment, others can't because they are wrongly categorised as schizophrenia cases," said Ramathibodi Hospital vice director Ronnachai Kongsakon. He said patients with schizophrenia now had absolutely no access to free medical treatment, despite the fact that there are medicines that would allow them to live and work normally. Ronnachai said these patients had in fact paid their monthly contributions to the social security fund that finances the SSO's benefit schemes for its members. "But they don't enjoy medical care when they need to be treated for schizophrenia," he said, adding even the free universal healthcare scheme, which the government offers to people without jobs, provides free treatment for schizophrenia. Based on his research, Ronnachai said the SSO would pay only Bt500 million more a month to provide free medical treatment to those suffering schizophrenia. "This is an amount SSO can clearly afford," he said. Rachanee's group wants the SSO to remove "psychosis" from the list of diseases that are not covered. Sarida Kanlayachat said her younger brother developed schizophrenia symptoms two years ago, hearing voices in his head and suffering from paranoia. "He had made monthly contributions to the social-security fund for many years but now, when he has developed schizophrenia, he receives no assistance," she complained. Sarida said her brother had to pay Bt2,000 in medical bills a month and hospitalisation could cost up Bt50,000 if he needed to stay at a private hospital for about three days. Sarida said the SSO rule of financial assistance for 15 days only was unreasonable. "Even the first dose of medication sometimes needs 20 days to have the desired effect," she said.
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