Thailand’s cabinet approved a 2.996 billion baht budget from the Central Fund today (Tuesday), as risk compensation for medical personnel and officials from other ministries and organisations who were involved in the efforts to cope with the spread of COVID-19 from July 2021 to June 2022.
The budget is to be split among the Public Health Ministry (1,363 billion baht), the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (561.46 million baht), the Defence Ministry (385.10 million baht), the Interior Ministry (420.39 million baht), the Justice Ministry (92.16 million baht), the Royal Thai Police (52.16 million baht), the Thai Red Cross Society (111.78 million baht) and King Chulalongkorn General Hospital (10.13 million baht).
Deputy government spokesperson Traisuree Traisoranakul said that the Public Health Ministry sought a budget from the cabinet for these officials, who risked their lives when working with COVID patients and have not been compensated, adding that the special remuneration is intended as a morale booster in return for their sacrifices.
She also said that will be another amount of risk compensation, estimated at about 3.7 billion baht, for officials working during the pandemic from June to September last year, which the Public Health Ministry will seek from the cabinet in the next fiscal year.
