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Published on September 4, 2007

Dr Thinakorn Noree, a public health policy researcher from the International Health Policy Programme, said the study found that the current number of traditional physicians stood at 3,529, but only 269 of the doctors were certified by the Public Health Ministry's Registration Divi-sion and were allowed to practice as doctors in public hospitals. This number was not enough to serve patients who ask for alternative medical treatment in the 10,572 hospitals and health care units across the country.

However, he said the rest of the 3,529 traditional medical workers were not certified by the ministry because the institutes they graduated from were not up to standard.

There are 15 institutes that offer a Thai traditional treatment curriculum but only four institutes could pass the Public Health Ministry's standards.

Most of them have did not have enough professors or the amount of hours required from the ministry to teach students who want to study traditional medicine.

"If the ministry wants to promote Thai traditional and alternative treatment for patients in hospitals across country over the next 10 years, then it has to consider how to increase the number of traditional physicians due to the problem of standards," he said.

Thinakorn said the ministry should also plan to attract 10,000 medical workers to work as government officials instead of the private sector. "It has to offer some financial incentive to persuade them to work for the government," he said.

Dr Wichai Chokevivat, a senior public health officer, said the ministry needed to improve the quality of traditional treatment standards and the educational institutes that teach it because most teachers were "pseudo-intellectuals" and few of them really knew about the discipline of Thai traditional treatment.

Furthermore, he said, they do not transfer their knowledge to other people - except the family. This was still a problem for traditional treatment in Thailand.

Pongphon Sarnsamak

 The Nation