Thailand’s universal healthcare can be a model for developing countries
health and well-being, and avoided unnecessary treatments.
The third and perhaps the most important lesson was the value of being intensely pragmatic and politically astute. For example, they had very few physicians, so they worked with nurses. Since they did not even have a sufficient number of nurses, they hired young women with high school diplomas and gradually grew their health workforce by alternating intensive field experience for them with classroom training and certification.
Once the reform was introduced and approaches to providing care were rationalised, the prescient decision on their part to include even the non-poor created a broad constituency in its favour which made it hard to reverse. Today, all the main political parties support the UHC scheme as a result. While it will continue to evolve, it is highly unlikely that the basic scheme would ever be abolished in the future.
As developing countries seek to pivot towards providing universal healthcare to their citizens, the three broad lessons from Thailand, of being prepared, exercising tight control, and being pragmatic and politically astute, could prove to be very valuable ones to keep in mind.
In addition, while there will be a need for careful adaptation and learning, there are several other lessons from their experience that hold a great deal of value as well.
Nachiket Mor and Stefan Nachuk are employees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The views expressed are personal