The project also aims to raise hospitals' treatment quality and boost patients' access to emergency care.

About 30 major hospitals in Bangkok will join hands with the Public Health Ministry, National Health Security Office (NHSO) and five other medical professional associations for the scheme.

The collaboration includes

getting people at a high risk of

having a stroke registered with hospitals ahead of any attack in order to get them life-saving treatment within the "window period" of three hours, said NHSO chief Dr Sa-nguan Nitayarumphong.

The statistics for last year show that 242,023 Thais suffered strokes and about 10 million were vulnerable to strokes, said Dr Maiyathat Samsen, head of the Prasat Neurological Institute.

Worldwide, about 11 people die of strokes every minute, he said.

Although strokes were a rising health threat in Thailand, access to treatment had not much improved in recent years, said Dr Choochai Sornchumni, from the NHSO's disease management department.

If the pilot project in Bangkok proves a success, the stroke-treatment project will be expanded to other major provinces at a later time, Sa-nguan said.

In the long run, the project aims to improve the standard of

treatment for stroke victims in hospitals nationwide.

And the ultimate aim is to improve access for patients in rural areas, who are normally far from quality medical institutions.

"The faster patients come to doctors when they have a stroke, the better chance they have of surviving," Maiyathat said.

However, he said, the quality of treatment for a stroke in each hospital was unequal,even in Bangkok, he said.

Standardising treatment was an important way to cut deaths and disabilities from this disease, Maiyathat insisted.

However, neurologist Nipon Pungvarin, president of the Neurology Association of Thailand, said the best defence against a stroke was disease

prevention, irrespective of how good the treatment was.

Meanwhile, neurosurgeon Vathunyu Pratchayanont said the rate of side-effects likely to be caused by medicine given to

prevent or reduce blood clots - often used by people thought to be susceptible to strokes - was only 6 to 10 per cent.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation