Doctors 'should be ashamed'
A group of health and consumer-rights advocates yesterday called on the Medical Council to take back its recent announcement that says doctors can reject patients in some cases when the complaint is not urgent or life-threatening.
"Whether it's legitimate or not is not the point; the point is what the announcement is for," said Saree Ongsomwang, manager of the Foundation for Consumers. "This is very important and they [the Medical Council] should be ashamed," she said after leading a group of non-governmental organisations to lodge a complaint at the council's office. Contradicting the council's earlier response that the announcement was only meant as a way to reduce the medical errors that have led to increasing legal action against doctors, Saree said it would bar patients from state health services. If doctors were allowed to refuse cases considered not to be severe, these patients would be forced to go to private healthcare facilities where they are charged, she said. Virat Phurahong, president of the Network of People Living with HIV/Aids, said the wording of the announcement was rather broad and left everything to the doctor's judgement. Arthit Khwankhom The Nation
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