The Comptroller General’s Department will join the War Veterans Organisation and the Veteran General Hospital in filing a lawsuit against about 20 former and serving officials of the hospital, demanding compensation for the theft over a decade of expensive imported drugs that treat non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Patricia Mongkhonvanit, director-general of the Comptroller General’s Department, said that their litigation office has been instructed to prepare a lawsuit seeking compensation, once disciplinary action has been taken against the officials involved.
She admitted that there is a loophole in the entitlements of active and retired government officials and their families to free medical treatment from the state, because they extend to hospitals other than the ones where they usually receive medical treatment.
In many cases, she said, doctors who write the prescriptions do not actually treat the patients.
She added, though, that the Comptroller General’s Department will not change the rules pertaining to the entitlements to close the loophole, because this may adversely affect many retired and serving officials and their families who are not involved in abuse of the entitlements.
Patricia disclosed that the costs of free medical services for government officials and their families are estimated at over 100 billion baht per annum, and they generally increase every year because most of the patients are retired.
Meanwhile, Worawit Kittiwongsunthorn, former deputy director-general of the Medical Sciences Department, disclosed that doctors have a tendency to prescribe a large quantity of the NCD drugs, such as statins and drugs that treat diabetes, on each visit by the patient to reduce the frequency of their trips to hospitals.
He pointed out that the lack of data sharing between state hospitals, regarding the dispensing of drugs, is another loophole, making it impossible to track the records of patients accepting drugs prescribed by doctors.
Of late, the Comptroller General’s Department has tightened controls on the dispensing of expensive drugs by demanding explanations from the executives of hospitals which prescribe unusually large quantities of NCD medications
