Dr. Nuttagarn Chuenchom, a specialist in infectious disease, has threatened to resign if she is forced to allocate time meant for treating Thai patients, to care for Myanmar refugees at a refugee camp in Mae Sot district, Tak.
In a The Nation report, the said doctor from Mae Sot Hospital posted her concerns on social media on Monday, arguing that it is unfair for the hospital to divert resources to treat Myanmar refugees, when the hospital is already struggling with inadequate number of doctors, when there’s an influx of local patients waiting.
The post continues that Dr. Nuttagarn has been ordered to visit a refugee camp to treat patients with tuberculosis and HIV after healthcare centers along the Thai-Myanmar border were ordered to close.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which operates under the funding of the US government, was ordered to close by the end of January.
In response, the Tak public health office have instructed five Thai hospitals in the province to take turns providing medical assistance for refugees in three camps.
Dr. Nuttagarn insists that the refugee situation should be treated as national issues, rather than being left to the provincial health office or the local hospitals to manage. She addes that she would resign from her 20-year government service if the said order was not withdrawn by Monday. No further update was made as of Tuesday.
She continues that local Thai patients in Mae Sot were already suffering due to “the shortage of doctors, long waiting lines for check-up and treatment.” Now with doctors being reassigned, the situation will just worsen.
She also points out that the number of refugees in the camps were already equal to the population of a district. She calls on the central government to allocate budget to hire the same group of Myanmar doctors, who were serving the IRC, rather than forcing Thai doctors to “take on additional responsibilities when Thai patients were also in need of care,’ her post concludes.
