Rural doctors and civil society groups are warning that plans to allow increased foreign ownership of private health services will lead to a shortage of doctors in public hospitals.
Foreign investors will be able to own up to 70% of private hospitals when the Asean Economic Community (AEC) is introduced in 2015. Foreign investment is currently capped at 49%.
Kriangsak Watcharanukulkiat, the Rural Doctors Society's president, said the foreign share increase in private hospitals would encourage a "brain drain" of doctors from state hospitals.
"We have already suffered a medical doctor shortage. This would make the situation worse," he said.
Foreign investors can offer higher incomes to attract state doctors to private hospitals, he said.
Doctors in private hospitals are already paid over four times as much as doctors in state hospitals, though many split their time between hospitals in both sectors.
Aids Access Foundation director Nimit Tian-udom said an influx of foreign investors could hurt medical equality. He agreed that increasing foreign shares would attract medical staff to the private sector.
But Chalerm Harnphanich, the Private Hospital Association's president, disagreed, saying the move would benefit the economy. It will increase the flow of capital and foreign patients, he said.
"The root of the problems is not the change which will come after the AEC," he said. "The problems occur because of our inability to produce enough medical personnel."
