Ministry to monitorpublic health

This unit will draw up a plan and prepare measures to help people adversely affected by the state of the global economy, such as the poor, the unemployed, the young, elderly and single mothers.

The ministry's deputy permanent secretary, Dr Chakratham Thammasak, said the ministry's surveillance committee will be running the unit and collecting information to estimate the adverse impacts.

The surveillance committee is comprised of the Bureau of Policy and Strategy, Department of Health, Department of Health Services and Support, International Health Policy Programme, Health System Research Institute, National Health Security Office, Health Insurance System Research Office, National Statistical Office and the Social Security Office.

The Bureau of Policy and Strategy's director, Dr Suppakit Sirilak, who is also chairing the surveillance committee, said the unit would be monitoring the impacts on public health until December 2010.

"We will team up with experts and scholars to study any possible health impacts," he said.

Meanwhile, the National Statistical Office will survey the impact the global economic crisis is having on the labour market. The unit will report to the ministry's highlevel officers every three months to come up with policies that help mitigate the problems, he added.

Dr Chakratham said the ministry believes this economic crisis is worse than the one that hit Thailand in 1997.

About one to two million workers will lose their jobs, while those with no health insurance will be most at risk. The number of povertystricken people would increase to one million and the government will end up having to cut its health budget. The ministry said it expects newborns to be malnourished and the number of stressrelated suicides to rise. In addition, he said, more people will also choose to purchase overthecounter drugs instead of going to the hospital.