Ensuring an adequate supply and equitable distribution of health workers is of high importance to achieving effective universal health coverage and sustainable development goals. The equitable geographical distribution of doctors is a recurring global health workforce challenge and has been part of the health policy discussion for many decades. Studies have shown that higher densities of doctors are associated with better health outcomes such as increased life expectancies and decreased standardized death rates [1,2,3,4,5]. The concentration of doctors in one region at the expense of other regions, such as the high concentrations of doctors in large cities and urban areas, has led to inequitable access to health care in many countries [6]. Furthermore, socio-cultural changes and the increasing incidence of chronic conditions in aging populations are increasing demand for health care much faster than the supply of doctors [1], which effectively widens these inequitable workforce distribution gaps.
Thailand is an upper middle-income country that implemented a universal health coverage scheme in 2002, and by 2017, 99.84% of the Thai population had some form of health coverage [7]. Available health facilities delivering services to people can be classified according to a three-tiered service system composed of primary, secondary and tertiary care facilities. Primary health care facilities provide services that incorporate common illness treatment, health promotion, disease prevention, rehabilitation and community health interventions. This type of health facility includes health centers, which are mostly under the control of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). Secondary health care facilities provide curative care following referral from primary care facilities. Such health facilities include the MoPH administered district hospitals, other public hospitals, and private hospitals. Tertiary health care facilities provide specialized care, usually after referral from primary or secondary health care facilities. These facilities include MoPH administered general and regional hospitals, university hospitals, and other public hospitals and private hospitals [7]. Many health facilities are concentrated in the capital Bangkok, which is home to 5,487,876 people. Of the public hospitals in Bangkok in 2017, 5 were medical school hospitals, 18 were specialist hospitals, 26 were general hospitals and 137 were medical centers. In addition, 108 of the nation’s 308 private hospitals (35%) were located in Bangkok in 2017 [7]. At the regional level, which covers the 76 provinces excluding Bangkok, there were 6 medical school hospitals, 49 specialist hospitals and 28 regional hospitals in 2017. At the provincial level, health facilities comprised general or regional hospitals, district hospitals and health centers. In 2017, there were 88 general hospitals covering all provinces, 780 district hospitals covering 88.8% of districts, and 9,777 health centers, functioning as primary health care facilities, covering all sub-districts [7]. Almost all health facilities at provincial level are under the responsibility of the MoPH, but private hospitals were also found in big regional centers.
The number of doctors, including general practitioners and all specialist doctors, was 41,746 in 2013 and the ratio of doctors per 1,000 population was 0.65 [8]. The annual production of general practitioners from all medical schools in Thailand has increased from 1676 in 2013 to 3218 in 2017 [7], but the density of doctors in Thailand remains well below the average doctor density in South East Asian countries (1.1/1000 population) and Europe (2.9/1000 population) [9], indicating a shortages of doctors. In addition, doctors in Thailand are not equitably distributed between rural and urban areas or between provinces with low economic status and wealthier provinces [4], hindering the effective provision of health care services by the Thai health system. The Thai government has implemented a multi-pronged intervention strategy over decades to attract and retain doctors in underserved areas. To increase the number of doctors serving rural areas, a special track for student recruitment and training has been implemented that enrolls students with rural backgrounds, provides training at medical schools and MoPH hospitals close to their hometowns, and obliges them to return to their home provinces upon graduation. These interventions help increase the likelihood of medical graduates choosing to work and remain in rural areas [10,11,12]. This special track currently accounts for 47% of the total number of new graduates (general doctors) employed to work in MoPH facilities annually [10, 11]. In additional, financial and non-financial incentives have been implemented to attract and retain doctors to MoPH facilities, details of which can be seen in the reviews of Wibulpolprasert el al [13] and Pagaiya and Noree [14]. However, as the overall health needs of the population continue to increase due to the increasing proportion of elderly patients and the increasing incidence of chronic diseases, more health workers are required. The current situation combines an overall shortage of doctors with increased demand, which has further aggravated the maldistribution of doctors.
In a strategy to address doctor maldistribution, the MoPH began allocating newly graduated general practitioners according to health service utilization in 2017 [15]. By this approach, the doctor requirements of each hospital in 2017 were determined based on service utilization in that hospital in 2016. The services were outpatient visits, inpatient days, operation services, delivery services, and accident and emergency services. In addition, at each hospital, a ratio of one doctor for five health centers was used to estimate the number of doctors required to serve primary health care, and the ratio of doctor per health centers were based on the service utilization at health center facilities [15]. The total number of doctors required for all MoPH facilities in 2017–2021 was forecast to be 20,053–24,668 doctors. To achieve this target, newly graduated general practitioners were allocated to each province during 2017–2021 according to service utilization and number of health centers in the area. It is important that doctor distribution is equitable, so that people receive accessible, qualified and efficient health services. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effects of doctor allocation by the MoPH in relation to equity distribution.