Rescue foundations in the Northeast have suspended their free emergency response services after not receiving financial support from the National Institute for Emergency Medicine (Niem) for eight months.
Pisit Pongsirisupakul, vice-chairman and secretary-general of the Phutthatham Hook 31 Foundation in Nakhon Ratchasima, on Tuesday said at least five of its 50 rescue teams had stopped operating emergency ambulance services as they did not have money for fuel.
He said this was the case despite the foundation accepting public donations and once having 500,000 baht in its bank account, which is now in the red.
“We have more than two million baht in debts,” Mr Pisit said.
“The volunteer teams still operating have to pay for petrol themselves because if we stop our services, people will be badly affected,” he said.
Mr Pisit said he hoped Niem would show empathy to the foundation and other rescuers nationwide and speed up reimbursements.
Another foundation, Sawang Metta Thamma Sathan, in Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima, also faces the same budget difficulties.
Some of the rescuers told local media yesterday that sometimes they needed to pick up patients who lived in remote places or up to 30km away from a hospital. They used their own money to provide the service.
The foundation urged Niem to help solve its financial problems quickly as they don’t want patients in need of emergency services to be impacted by such mismanagement of the state agency, according to the foundation.
In Khon Kaen, two units of the Highway Police Rescue (HPR), another voluntary foundation, suspended their emergency service after they ran out of funds.
HPR chairman, Nirun Udomkaew, said the unit had not received money from Niem for many months, and they now did not have money to pay for fuel or any of the equipment necessary to help people in need.
Database system
Niem deputy secretary-general Gp Capt Dr Pisit Charoenying said Niem had a 1.05-billion-baht budget to support emergency services provided by rescue volunteers this year, but a Niem database system has had problems since the end of last year, which resulted in Niem not being able to reimburse costs incurred by foundations.
“The system has been used for 15 years, and it was too old,” he said.
“We have a new system up and running, so we hope to allocate budgets for rescue units nationwide this month,” he added.