Situation of Consumer Protection for Health Establishments A Case Study of Phetchabun Province, Thailand

Abstract

Thai government has announced a policy to develop Thailand to be Global Medical Hub to promote health businessincluding spa for health, massage for health and massage for beauty. While Thai health establishments have beenconfronted a crucial problem – service quality, Health Establishments Act B.E.2559 was provided to particularly managethe business. The Act has been recently enforced, so any practices or operations have been not explicit yet which causedperformance of engaged officials was ineffective. Hence, researcher studied situation of consumer protection for healthestablishments: a case study of Phetchabun Province, Thailand followed by the Health Establishment Act B.E. 2559. It wasalso to investigate problems, obstacles, limitations, and recommendations. In-depth interview with open-ended questionswas used to collect data and participant observation was included. Purposive sampling was performed which informantswere 6 entrepreneur representatives of health massage establishments which were specifically selected from three zonesof Phetchabun - 2 for each, 11 district government officers from 11 districts – 1 for each, and 2 provincial governmentofficers. The results were found that the Health Establishment Act B.E. 2559 was provided to control the health businessespecially people who required to start the health establishment in oversea and domestic. Health Establishment Division,Department of Health Service Support specified practices, missions, goals, and indicators for achievement followed by theAct, but guidelines, practices, and operations were not clarified. Besides, the practices were not focused on service qualitywhich is a main factors affecting safety of service users. However, the officials applied their own experienced to perform.They required to improve IT system whereas assessment form was needed to develop. Training for staff in the healthestablishments could be always arranged. Merchants or managers conducting their establishments have insufficientcost for site improvement. They required to create a connection of co-workers for sharing and exchanging knowledgeunder support and assistant of the officials. In conclusion, stakeholders including government officers, merchants, serviceproviders, and managers could be developed to raise their competency. While regulations and practices could be alsoadjusted to be explicit and covered phases of health establishment affairs, service quality which was a crucial part couldbe particularly heightened.