The public health minister has vowed to dump the Thailand Development Research Institute after it handed over its latest critical report about the state of the Bt30 healthcare scheme.

The report said hospitals were going broke because the scheme had not been implemented properly.

Minister Pinij Charusombat said of the institute: "I have ordered the ministry to stop hiring the TDRI to evaluate the Bt30 healthcare scheme. There will never, ever be a contract renewal as long as I am minister here."

The Public Health Ministry has repeatedly hired the TDRI during the past four years to evaluate the scheme and present intermittent progress reports.

But its latest report, said Pinij, was biased against the government and the ministry would now look further afield, perhaps to Mahidol or Kasetsart University for future reports.

In a media seminar on Wednesday, Ammar Siamwalla, a distinguished scholar of economics, and Viroj Naranong, a senior economics research specialist - both of whom have done much research work on the scheme - said many hospitals were labouring with serious financial difficulties.

They said the hospitals were battling hardships as a direct result of the government's insincerity about implementing the scheme.

The hospitals have never received enough money for the scheme to work, said their report.

"Ammar doesn't understand the scheme and is biased against the government and the [caretaker] prime minister [Thaksin Shinawatra]," said Pinij, adding that Thaksin had backed the scheme to the hilt.

Ammar sees it differently.

"The fact is this scheme has always been under-funded. Every medical doctor in this country, even the head of the National Health Security Office Dr Sa-nguan [Nitayarumphong], is well aware of this," Ammar said in a telephone interview with The Nation.

"And the government can resolve this problem, but it's simply never tried to do so," he said.

"I'm not going as far as to say the government has intentionally not given the scheme enough money."

Viroj yesterday vowed to continue his work researching and evaluating the Bt30 scheme, whether the Public Health Ministry funds him or not.

Arthit Khwankhom

 The Nation