Encouraging Thai women to get pregnant to be part of national agenda: health minister
Airing concerns about the dropping birth rate in Thailand, Public Health Minister Santi Promphat said he will make encouraging Thai women to have more children part of the national agenda.
Dr Kenika Oonjit, a deputy government spokesperson, said Santi had visited the Health Department on Wednesday to ask its executives to implement the ministry’s 13 urgent policies to improve health standards in the country.
Kenika said one of the urgent policies was improving services under the universal healthcare programme, so Thais could just use their national ID to be admitted to any hospital in case of emergencies.
However, she said, the most urgent issue was boosting the birth rate in the country.
Among the measures the minister wants the Health Department to implement is opening more fertility clinics to help women with infertility issues get a better chance at conceiving, Kenika said.
She added that the infertility issue will be addressed as an integrated measure to promote both public health and the environment under the ministry’s so-called “healthy city models”.
She added that Santi also wants to tackle the low birth rate issue by devising new measures and guidelines.
“The minister wants to make the issue part of the national agenda, so women can be offered incentives to have more children,” Kenika said. “Thai women will be honoured for having children, as they have to sacrifice their own health to conceive and give birth.”
A study conducted by Mahidol University shows that the birth rate in Thailand has been plunging for several years. It also found that the death rate was higher than births.
As of December 31 last year, the Thai population stood at 66.08 million with 502,107 births and 595,965 deaths, the study stated.
In 1971, Thailand had 12 million newborns, but the number dropped to 702,761 in 2017, 618,192 in 2019, 544,578 in 2021 and 502,107 in 2022, the study showed.
