Volunteers to fight rural infant mortality
Despite the work of public organisations some 200,000 newborns died in the countryside last year out of a total of 800,000, said Health Minister Vithaya Kaewparadai.
For this reason Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has approved a plan to restore the volunteer public health network tested in 2000 but never implemented.
Suree Hiranrat is a volunteer who works in Mahasarakam, about 475 kilometres from Bangkok.
Her “duty is to is to visit poor families,” she said, “especially pregnant women” and provide them with “advice about how to take care of themselves during the pregnancy so that the child will develop properly and healthy.” She is also tasked with “convincing them to go to government health care facilities to get the right assistance.”
This might seem self-evident but it is essential because the “poor tend to be uneducated and are frequently concerned about going to see a doctor by themselves, preferring instead to go accompanied by somebody else.” Unfortunately,”there are not enough doctors in remote areas.”
For Rattana Saenamork, volunteers must be an intermediary between the health service and the poorest. As a volunteer she only gets 20 dollars a month for her work, but she and her colleagues are usually very motivated to bring help to those in need.
At present the government would like to raise an army of 960,000 volunteers within a year so as to reach even the remotest corners of the kingdom.
In the case of mothers and their children the work of volunteers goes beyond birth. They must help mothers, for example, realise that they should breastfeed for at least six months, said Health Minister Kaewparadai.
The volunteer programme has also won the support of health care professionals.
Dr Somboon Watcharothai, from Pisanuloak province, said that he personally taught basic health care principles to local volunteers.
“At the beginning people thought I was trying to train unlicensed physicians or village healers,” he said. Volunteering however “requires willingness to serve, clarity, an ability to gain trust. It is also useful to belong to the community and be economically self-sufficient so as not to depend upon the village.”
“Volunteers make sacrifices for the good of the people and play an important role,” said Wattana Rojvijitkul, a public health doctor in Petchaburi, about 120 kilometres from Bangkok. In this area “we have 7,338 volunteers,” he pointed out.
Given the positive results the Health Ministry plans to extend the programme to geriatric care.
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19/11/2004
