Family Planning

The Fifth National Economic and Social Development Plan (1982-1986). Part V, Chapter 2, p.179-181.

Date:     1982-1986

Source:     Office of the Prime Minister, National Economic and Social Development Board, Bangkok, Thailand

Subject:     family planning services, incentives, IEC, training of health workers

3.2.1 Family Planning

(1) Extend both public and private sector family planning services throughout the country by increase the number of mobile units and promoting the use of permanent contraceptive methods, particularly for people living in remote and disadvantaged areas. Emphasis will be placed on providing family planning services to selected groups of people with high fertility rate such as those living in the Northeast, the four border provinces in the South, the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. Emphasis will also be placed on providing such services to refugees and hilltribes.

(2) Increase and improve the dissemination of information on family planning through the mass media and encourage each province to set up its own public information and dissemination programme using simple language suitable to local conditions.

(3) Produce and develop manpower through the provision of technical training for doctors, nurses, midwives, and assistant public health officers. Short-term training courses will also be arranged for community leaders, volunteers, and women and youth groups in basic family planning methods and on how to motivate or attract additional acceptors.

In order to increase all categories of personnel who are able to provide family planning services, nurses and auxiliary nurses who pass the training course on IUD insertions and who have been accepted by the family programme authorities will be authorized to use this methods as if they are under the supervision of doctors. In addition there are also other groups of people such as teachers and volunteer officers who should be authorized by the Ministry of Public Health and the Medical Council to prescribe pills for the second time and after. However, thorough physical examination by auxiliarly midwives or doctors should be strictly enforced before prescriptions are authorized for first time users.

3.2.2 Legal measures and incentives

(1) Regulations and legal measures. Consideration will be given to the following

(1.1) Issue ministerial regulations permitting trained and experienced government para-medical personnel to perform sterilization. The Medical Profession Act has already made room for the undertaking of such actions.

(1.2) Improve the regulations allowing civil servants and other employees to be released from work, without loss of leave in order to have sterilization operations. After the operation leave of absences should also be permitted.

(1.3) Revise article 305 of the Criminal Code to require less stringent conditions for obtaining legal abortions, i.e. to permit legal abortions to be obtained for unplanned pregnancies due to failure of contraception, because there is, as yet, no perfect contraception.

(2) Tax measures. Major tax measures to be implemented are as follows:

(2.1) To exempt family planning devices from customs duties so that public and private organizations offering such services will be able to continue providing them.

(2.2) To develop incentive package to enable the private sector to set up factories for manufacturing family planning devices such as oral contraceptives and others, by requesting donor countries to permit the purchase of locally produced contraceptives as substitutes for those produced in donor countries.

(2.3) Reduce the tax rates of single persons in order to encourage them to delay marriage.

(2.4) Allowing employers of donors to deduct the following expenses on their income taxes:

- Expenses on the provision of family planning services to employees as a part of health care services under the Labour Protection Law.

- Donations made to finance projects on the development of employee skills.

- Donations made to provide meals for school children.

(3) Incentives

(3.1) Induce people to use family planning services particularly for sterilization by making payments or awards to those who provide family planning services and to those motivate others to use family planning if a certain target is met. Provide free child delivery service for those who consent to undergo sterilization after delivery.

(3.2) Motivate people to have no more than two children by giving special benefits to small families, for example, by awarding scholarships to children of small families, providing housing welfare services and by offering government aid to certain groups of people or communities located in the rural areas e.g., agricultural credit, hiring of farm animals, animal husbandry services, etc.