Published on June 13, 2005 - Two village health volunteers have been reprimanded by senior officials for telling The Nation that their lives were at risk while taking chicken specimens without proper training and equipment during government operations to control bird flu last October.

The volunteers were summoned to a district health office in Suphan Buri where they were allegedly forced to sign a letter saying they had been misquoted.

The pair said they put their signatures on the letter because they wanted intimidation to stop.

“Who wants to hear the truth in this day and age?” one asked, declining to give further details about the nature of the intimidation.

“Some people just worry about protecting their reputation.”

Another volunteer from Kanchanaburi who was quoted in the same article, headlined: “Frontline failing: volunteers angry, dispirited, won’t work”, in The Nation on April 20, said she had also been contacted by district health officials, but had not yet met with them. Dr Surin Prasithiran, head of Suphan Buri provincial health office, said he was not aware of any intimidation against the two volunteers. He acknowledged the existence of the letter, but said he no longer had a copy.

He promised, however, that if he could find any harassment against the two volunteers by his subordinates he would put an end to it.

Chamlong Srisawad, chief of village health volunteers from Chachoengsao, last week confirmed details of the story that upset health officials. As with the others, his volunteers had taken chicken samples without proper protection.

“My team didn’t receive equipment at all,” he recalled. “We used either plastic shopping bags tightened by rubber bands as gloves, or socks, when touching the chickens. I heard some boots arrived later and now they’re just sitting around collecting dust at the district offices.”

Dr Rewat Wisarutwet, director general of the Public Health Ministry’s Medical Service Support Department, admitted that there could have been a logistic error. The equipment left the ministry but did not make its way to the volunteers.

“But I insist that safety of the volunteers is our chief concern,” said Rewat, whose department oversees the 800,000 village health volunteers. He said he had not seen the letter signed by two the volunteers in Suphan Buri, allegedly forwarded to his department.

“But from reading the report [in The Nation], I believe the volunteers told the truth without any hidden agenda of ruining the health ministry’s reputation,” he said. “I thank them for letting us know where the problems might be, so we can fix them. And that is what I’m beginning to do now.”

Nantiya Tangwisutijit
The Nation