PATTANI, Nov 10 — Emergency medical units in Thailand’s three insurgency-affected southern provinces will be improved by the Public Health Ministry to reduce the number of casualties at the hands of insurgents in the region.
Public Health Minister Dr Rajata Rajatanavin and his deputy Dr Somsak Chunharas early Sunday led ministry officials to inspect facilities and visit medical personnel at Koke Po Hospital here. They presented money and visited 66 patients wounded by insurgents and who are being treated at the hospital.
They later inspected Pattani Public Health Office and saw how the wounded are treated and how the Defence Ministry and other concerned agencies cooperate.
Some 5,000 people have been killed in the three provinces — Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat — since renewed violence erupted in January 2004.
Dr Rajata told journalists later that emergency medical units in the three provinces would be improved with initial treatment being given to insurgency victims in the field before being sent to hospital.
Every doctor stationed at community hospitals will be given a special training programme named the southern trauma and emergency care project, he said.
The programme is jointly conducted with Prince of Songkla University.
Surgical doctors will be given expanded training on providing treatment to patients in critical condition and on transferring patients via land and air to better-equipped hospitals for treatment, Dr Rajata added.
