Four hospitals to lead rehab policy

The Public Health Ministry is focusing more attention on the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, as their number increases by 100,000 every year.

Starting next month, four major hospitals in four provinces will actively guide disabled people and their families on how to improve their health.

Under a new project launched by the ministry's Sirindhorn National Medical Rehabilitation Centre, these hospitals will become role models in the field of rehabilitation for people with disabilities.

They are Na Yai Am Hospital in Chanthaburi, Mae Lao Hospital in Chiang Rai, Tha Sae Hospital in Chumphon and the Dan Sai Crown Prince Hospital in Loei.

"The hospitals will assign their staff members to follow up on the rehabilitation for disabled people. Care for the disabled should improve at home and reduce any complications that may arise," Public Health Minister Witthaya Buranasiri said yesterday.

He noted that proper care should be able to reduce incidences of bedsores and atrophy.

Witthaya said the ministry expected to expand the project's goals to major hospitals in every district next year.

He made the comments while speaking at Nakhon Phanom University during a ceremony to receive the donation of useful tools for the disabled, such as wheelchairs from four charity organisations - Joni and Friends, Wheel of Hope, Wheelchairs of Hope (Japan), and Helping Hands, from Norway. The donated items are worth over Bt10 million. Witthaya said there were now 1,207,833 disabled people in Thailand. Some 457,877 of them had lived in the Northeast. And every year, the number of disabled rose by about 100,000 mainly because of road accidents.

"Other common causes are paralysis arising out of complications from chronic diseases," he said.

Witthaya said disabled people needed medical rehabilitation and job opportunities. "If communities help with rehabilitation efforts, society would be a pleasant place to live in."

He said the health ministry was also working on another plan to directly aid people maimed in road accidents.