Occupational health

The Public Health Ministry has called on the government to set up occupational health institutes to undertake scientific research and provide better treatment for workers suffering from serious illnesses caused by severe accidents, including chemical poisoning, at the workplace.

As Thailand further develops its industrial sector, the number of patients suffering from occupational illness such as pneumoconiosis caused by chemical poisoning, will increase

But Thailand has no specialised hospitals and lacks professional health workers to provide better treatment for patients and conduct indepth research to investigate the root causes of diseases.

Also, the country has a little information on the number of patients suffering from serious occupational health problems.

Most of the patients do not know that they suffer from serious illnesses caused by occupational disease. Some of them undergo treatment at general hospitals which has only general physicians, who cannot diagnose specific conditions caused by occupational poisoning.

Most of the occupational health problems are caused by small and medium enterprises where there is a lack of funds to invest for the disease prevention.

The Social Security Fund has had to pay at least Bt1 billion as compensation for worker suffering from occupational health problems.

" If workers do not receive appropriate diagnosis and care, they will become poor due to disease, which will lead to social instability," said Somchai.

To improve the healthcare system for occupational disease prevention and treatment, the Department of Disease Control's directorgeneral, Dr Somchai Chakrabhand, said the government needs to invest at least Bt1 billion to establish special hospitals and institutes for surveillance and investigating the causes of occupational illness, and provide appropriate care workers.

In a bid to improve the country's capacity to develop health professionals who provide treatment to patient with occupational disease, the Department of Disease Control recently signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Guangdong Province Hospital for Occupational Disease Prevention and Treatment.

Under this cooperation, Thai medical workers will attend a training programme every year at Guangdong Hospital which has experts on prevention, control and treatment for occupational disease, especially in chemical poisoning.

Guangdong Hospital, established in 1959, currently has 335 professionals including physicians, nurses, toxicologists, and analytical chemists. The Chinese government gives it a US$2 million funding each year.

The hospital has focused on surveillance and management of occupational health, diagnosis and treatment of occupational disease. The hospital will also investigate, provide treatment and rescue in poisoning and nuclear accidents.

Body checkup and health monitoring for various kinds of workers are also the main tasks for hospital.

To date, the hospital has rescued 3,000 serious poisoning cases and succeeded in treatment of serious poisoning accidents caused by chemical substances such as nhexane, benzene, trichloroethene, organic tin and organic fluoride. These substances could cause fever, serious damage to skin and liver, and swollen superficial lymphonodes.