Adisorn Kerdmongkol, coordinator of the Migrant Working Group (MWG), has been working on migrant worker issues for many years. He mentioned the M-FUND project as follows:
“M-FUND is a fund or system that gives people who still cannot access health protection schemes more options. M-FUND allows migrants to purchase health protection schemes at a low cost and can pay gradually. There are no things like this in the government system. The government health insurance requests insured persons pay at one time, totaling over a thousand baht. Some migrants cannot pay that kind of money all at once.
Another thing is that M-FUND is like a community-based care system. Because it takes trust, there must be someone to certify. Or to apply, you must invite others to join as well. And this, I think, makes migrant workers more aware of taking care of their health.
The important thing is that M-FUND can connect health service systems, hospitals, private clinics, or Health Promotional Hospitals (SHPHs) with the migrant worker community. This is an important factor that M-FUND has built up over the years and made the project successful.”
About the challenge of M-FUND work, Adisorn has noted that:
“M-FUND works with the community. The communities are diverse, and each community in each area is different. Such as the Thai-Myanmar border community is different from the Thai-Lao or Thai-Cambodian border communities. So, adjusting the work style or method to be consistent with the various communities will be necessary.
The second is a suggestion that I think M-FUND has the potential to make it happen. There may be a need to develop community volunteers or health groups/clubs to help with the project implementation. Including awareness of health information is interesting because it is generally inaccessible to migrant workers. It might be information documents, or easily accessible media that provides health information to the migrant worker community. It will help a lot.”
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