The 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service

RESPONSE of  Prawase Wasi
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 1981 Manila, Philippines

The Award is greatly appreciated, not so much for myself, but more for the recognition of the principles shared by my friends in Thailand. There are many good and able people in the Thai Government Service, although the impossible bureaucracy is not so conducive to making those qualities as apparent and valuable as they should have been. We do humbly share the late President Magsaysay's faith in human values, which, upon being genuinely preserved and promoted, have unlimited power for creativity necessary for humanity to last and prosper. It is the wisdom of this Foundation to create for their beloved President a mechanism to propagate enthusiasm in human value development throughout Asia and, no doubt, beyond.

A great majority of the people in the world today are still living miserable lives, plagued by poverty, not having enough to eat, poor housing or no housing, lack of proper education, ill health without adequate health care or the ability to help themselves. However, knowledge and technology are already available or will be available, to make health for all possible in the not too distant future if national management and mobilization of human resources are well carried out.

Thailand has many modern big hospitals staffed by doctors famous in various fields of specialty. But these hospitals are too overcrowded with patients to give good care. After long traveling at great expense and painful waiting, each patient may receive only one or two minutes of a doctor's time; this cannot be considered good medical service. But the majority of the ill are either too poor or too far away to come to the hospitals. Thus the overall picture is that the majority do not have access to medical care and, for the minority who can make it to the hospitals, the care is of poor quality. This is because the health system, as in many other countries, is upside down. Its emphasis is more on big hospital setups rather than on community-based health care.

There is an urgent need to expand broad-based community health care. This should consist of primary health care and small health centers or small hospitals located near people's homes. For primary health care to be successful, all community resources must be mobilized. The people in every house? monks, schoolteachers, workers, etc., must be trained in primary health care. If this is well carried out 90 percent of the health problems will be taken care of, giving the big hospitals an opportunity to improve their medical service. Thus the key to success in health care development in a great majority of countries is to expand primary health care and the small health centers, with the support of more sophisticated levels of medical care, and not build more expensive and inefficient big hospitals. This principle should be appreciated by all concerned with the well-being of the country.

With hatred toward none and compassion for all, we shall strive together in the endeavor to achieve the noble goal of upgrading the quality of life of the people, as envisioned by the late President Magsaysay as well as by many wise citizens of the world, both before and after him.