• 
• 

Published on July 27, 2007

Dr Suradej Hongeng of the Department of Pediatrics at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, said the hospital lacked funding to support patients who needed bone-marrow transplants. The operations are very costly at Bt500,000 to Bt700,000 per patient.

Many patients who do not have any welfare coverage cannot access the treatment and they simply wait to die, he said.

"I would like to urge the National Health Security Office to allocate more money for transplant patients. Today there are 1,000 patients who need a bone-marrow transplant but the hospital can only cover the costs of operations for 200. For the rest, we do not have enough money to help them," Suradej said.

The hospital launched a project in 2004 called "Bone Marrow Transplants to honour Her Majesty the Queen's 72nd birthday" asking members of the public to donate money for operations.

Only 50 patients have received a bone-marrow transplant since the project started and the expenses have totalled Bt50 million. There are more than 50 other registered patients still on the waiting list.

Dr Winai Sawasdiworn, deputy secretary -general of the NHSO, said the agency was conducting a feasibility study to look into the allocation of funds from the national health security budget to cover bone-marrow transplants under the universal health scheme. The study will be concluded at the end of this year.

"Bone-marrow transplants are very costly, so the universal health scheme has not covered this type of treatment in the past. But our agency is conducting the feasibility study to consider what kind of blood diseases and health services the universal health scheme can cover in future," said Winai. 

Pongphon Sarnsamak

The nation