โครงการบัตรสุขภาพโดยความร่วมมือของรัฐบาลไทย-เยอรมัน
PROJECT DURATION
May 1984 – September 1993
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Thai-German Health Card Project was a multi-component project: In the beginning, activities mainly concentrated on promoting the expanded use of medicinal plants as alternatives for chemical drugs (“Expanded Use of Medical Plants Project”, 1984-1988). Activities in this field included the laboratory analysis of medicinal plants, research on the possibilities of highland cultivation of medicinal plants and the promotion of the Medicinal Plant Information Center at Mahidol-University.
However, in the course of times the project’s focus gradually shifted to the health-card-component, introduced as project component in 1985. Thereby the project supported in introducing a national health insurance system in the pilot-province of Chiang Mai. Later it extended to four further pilot-provinces (Lam Pang, Maha Sara Khaam, Rayong and Surat Thani).
The implementation of the health card system in pilot provinces provided valuable lessons-learnt and experiences for a voluntary health insurance system on a country-wide scale. Moreover, it contributed to the further development of a Thai national insurance through its activities and research components system which was on its way at the time the project ended.