Govt steps in over unpaid allowances

The Interior Ministry is reviewing allowances disbursed to health workers and officials battling Covid-19 following complaints that some of them did not receive the payments.

A ministry sosurce said staff had ordered provincial governors nationwide to make sure the more-than 100,000 frontline health workers and officials were given allowances owed to them, after complaints that some were missing out.

They include doctors and nurses and public health personnel attached to the provincial, district and local administrative offices.

The interior permanent secretary’s office has issued forms to the local administrative organisations, which must specify who has received the allowance payments.

According to the office’s instruction, the forms must be filled out and returned to the ministry by Jan 21, the source said.

The allowance payments were being checked after the Interior Ministry was sent a letter last month by the House committee on budget allocation monitoring.

The panel referred to a complaint by ministry officials who alleged their allowances were not forthcoming.

The officials said they had been ordered to assist public health workers in delivering home isolation and community isolation care to people sick with Covid-19. However, they said they were not being paid.

The source said the Interior Ministry has told the provincial offices nationwide to examine the allowance payments and report back any problems or hindrances with their disbursements.

The allowance is offered at different rates for medical and health workers in high-risk jobs of containing the virus and caring for the sick.

The rates are 1,500 baht per eighthour shift for doctors and 1,000 baht per shift for nurses and public health specialists as well as other healthcare service providers.