Doi Ngam District Hospital: Student Helpers Wanted

Our hospital is looking for students aged 16 to 19 to help older patients our video-call clinic this summer. Helpers will by our nursing team for two days before they begin.

No medical knowledge is required. , we are looking for young people who are patient, polite and confident with smartphones and tablets. Helpers will travel with village health volunteers to patients’ homes, they will set up calls and help patients speak with doctors.

The programme runs from 1 April 31 May. Helpers receive a certificate and a small travel allowance. Places are limited, so please apply 15 March. Application forms are available at the main reception desk or downloaded from the hospital’s website.

Who Will Care for Grandpa Thong? · by Fern Kaewmanee

When I signed up to volunteer at our district hospital, I expected to spend my time forms. Instead, I spent most of it listening.

Grandpa Thong is eighty-three. He rice for sixty years, and his hands still look strong, but he cannot use the hospital’s new touch-screen machines. His children live in Bangkok, and he sees them only a year, at Songkran. When I helped him register, he told me about his village as it was when he was young, when three generations lived under one roof.

Thailand is ageing faster than almost any other country in Asia. By around 2040, close to one in three Thais over sixty. Nurse Jintana told me that our district already has more patients over seventy than under twenty. young people move to the cities, the people left behind are mostly the very old and the very young.

I have learned is that technology can help, but only when someone is there to connect it to people. Auntie Sai, a village health volunteer, carries a tablet to her neighbours’ homes so they can speak to a doctor without travelling. The tablet is useful, it is her visit that makes them feel cared for.

I still want to become a nurse. But now I also want to a network of student helpers, so that no grandparent in our district has to face a machine, or a long week, alone.

Video-Call Clinic · Frequently Asked Questions

Who can use the clinic? Patients registered at Doi Ngam District Hospital who live more than 15 kilometres away, or who find travel difficult because of age or disability.

What can the clinic help with? Follow-up appointments for long-term conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, medicine reviews, and advice after leaving hospital. It is not suitable for emergencies. In an emergency, call 1669.

How do I book a call? Ask your village health volunteer, who will arrange a time and bring a tablet to your home. Calls take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9:00 and 15:00.

Will my medicine be delivered? Yes. If the doctor changes your medicine, it will be sent to your local health centre within three working days.

Is it private? Calls are not recorded. Only you, your volunteer and any family member you invite will be present.

Growing Old Before Growing Rich

Thailand is ageing at a remarkable speed. In the early 1990s, fewer than one in ten Thais was over sixty. Today the figure is about one in five, and by the late 2030s it is expected to approach one in three. France took more than a century to make a similar change; Thailand is doing it in roughly forty years.

Economists often say that Thailand is “growing old before growing rich”. Countries such as Japan and Germany aged after they had built strong economies and large pension systems. Thailand, by contrast, is ageing while many families still depend on farm incomes and while many older people have little or no savings. Most rely on their children, but the children have increasingly moved to cities for work.

The result is a quiet crisis in the countryside. In many villages, grandparents are raising grandchildren while the middle generation is away. When the grandparents themselves become ill, there may be no one at home to care for them.

Thailand does have one great strength: more than a million village health volunteers, mostly women, who visit their neighbours and connect them to the health system. Researchers praise the network as one of the most effective of its kind in the developing world. Yet the volunteers are ageing too. In some districts, their average age is now over fifty.

Experts suggest several responses, from community care centres to new technology. What they agree on is that the problem cannot be left to individual families alone.

The Thursday Call

On Thursday morning Fern rode behind Auntie Sai on her old motorbike, the hospital tablet wrapped in a plastic bag against the dust. Grandpa Thong was waiting on the wooden platform under his tamarind tree, wearing a clean shirt as if he were going to town.

“He always dresses up for the doctor,” Auntie Sai whispered.

Fern propped the tablet against a water jar and pressed the green button. After a moment, Dr. Prasit’s face appeared, slightly blurred. Grandpa Thong leaned so close to the screen that the doctor could see only his nose. Everyone laughed, including the old man.

The check-up took ten minutes. His blood pressure was better, and the doctor reduced one of his tablets. Then Fern did something she had planned with Nurse Jintana. She added a second person to the call.

A woman’s face appeared, with office lights behind her. “Pa? Can you see me?”

Grandpa Thong said nothing for a long moment. It was his daughter, Nong, calling from Bangkok during her lunch break. He had not seen her face since Songkran.

They talked about the rain, the price of rice and the neighbour’s new buffalo. They did not talk about anything important, and yet Fern noticed that Auntie Sai had turned away to wipe her eyes.

When the call ended, Grandpa Thong handed the tablet back carefully, with both hands, the way people return something valuable.

“Next Thursday,” he said, “tell the doctor I will be wearing my best shirt again.”