The following associations are linked to palliative care in Thailand.

Buddhika Network

Led by the Buddhist monk Pra Pisarn Visalo, the Buddhika Network is a national organisation made up of a disparate group of people who wish to explore the application of the Buddhist tradition to everyday life. Interest in dying features prominently and Buddhika’s conferences and workshops on the subject are well attended.

Eastern Network for People Living With HIV/ AIDS

This network is organised by the Camillian Social Centre, Rayong. Founded in 1999, it originally incorporated nine local associations of PLWHA. By 2003, the network had a membership of more than 1,400 people belonging to 28 local PLWHA associations in all seven provinces of the eastern region. The network develops its own work and defines its own roles – factors which its membership considers to be empowering.²⁴

Interfaith Network on AIDS

Founded in 2005, this organisation is a coordinated response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic from Buddhist, Christian and Muslim groups in Thailand. The network provides a platform for joint action and the exchange of experiences, ideas and lessons learned in caring for people living with HIV and AIDS.

Hospice Foundation of Thailand

The Hospice Foundation of Thailand emerged in 2007 from an earlier organisation known as Chiwantarak – the Thai Hospice Palliative Care Club – which was founded in January 2006 after a meeting on end of life care in Bangkok. Around 200 people attended from across the country, signalling the groundswell of interest among many disciplines at grass roots level. A committee was formed and Tanadej Sinthusake was elected president, to be succeeded in 2007 by Sakon Singha when the Club became the Foundation. It has four main objectives:

1. To advocate for the promotion of a peaceful and graceful death in Thai society.
2. To use the notion of the good death as an advocacy tool for good living and living with mindfulness.
3. To train volunteers who care for chronically ill and dying patients.
4. To promote the performance of research and a system of knowledge management related to dying in the context of Thai society.²⁵

According to Sakon, the Foundation’s membership and interdisciplinary nature are sources of strength:

‘If we count the palliative care units and services in Thailand, surely there’s not very many. But the countrywide hospice and palliative care network consists of many people who are interested in helping others. They are volunteers: doctors, psychologists, nurses, and people from every walk of life who value both life and death.’²⁶

Thai Association for the Study of Pain (TASP)

The Thai Association for the Study of Pain dates from the early 1990s; its current president is the Bangkok-based Pradit Prateepavanich. TASP is affiliated to the International Association for the Study of Pain (Thai chapter), an organisation that was founded in 1973 to bring together scientists, clinicians, health care providers and policy makers to stimulate and support the study of pain and to translate that knowledge into improved pain relief worldwide. In 2007, TASP reported a membership of more than 6,300 individuals from 108 countries in 69 chapters.

Temsak Phungrassami was appreciative of TASP’s support when faced with an inconsistent supply of morphine at Songklanagarind Hospital:

In the past, we used to exhaust our morphine quota and run out of morphine syrup for our patients; and then we had to use tablets, which are more expensive. So I mentioned having problems about the availability of morphine to TASP; and since the year 2000, we have had no problems about the quota. That is because the organisation decided to fight this one for us.²⁷

Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN)

The APHN evolved over a series of meetings (which owed much to the support of its patron, Shigeaki Hinohara) from 1995 until March 2001, when the organisation was registered in Singapore. Although the Secretariat is based in Singapore, the Association is a regional organisation with fourteen founding sectors (geographical regions in which members are located). These include: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The aim of APHN is to empower and support individuals and organisations committed to alleviating suffering from life-threatening illness in the Asia Pacific region. More than 1000 individuals and organisations from 29 countries have registered as members since 2001.²⁸ The Association’s objectives are:

• To facilitate the development of hospice and palliative care programs (both service providers and umbrella bodies) and other relevant initiatives
• To promote professional and public education in palliative care
• To enhance communication and dissemination of information
• To foster research and collaborative activities
• To encourage co-operation with local, regional and international professional and public organisations.

Nine key areas of activity have been identified:

1. Linking individuals and organisations
2. Publishing a directory
3. Establishing a website
4. Clinical fellowship scheme
5. Visiting faculty scheme
6. Travel bursaries
7. Donations of medicines
8. Donations of textbooks
9. Asia Pacific conferences²⁹

Among APHN’s twenty council members are Tanadej Sinthusake and Temsak Phungrassami. Both came to the attention of Cynthia Goh, head of the palliative medicine department at Singapore’s National Cancer Centre, and currently the Council’s Honorary Secretary, when word spread about the Thai doctors’ interest in palliative care. She recalls how the first links were made:

‘I said to Temsak, “Look, in between the years when we have our conferences we always have an AGM, and we usually go to a country which wants to do some sort of teaching activity and we donate the faculty. We all fly in; we expect local people to put us up somewhere and then we teach.” So I said, “Why don’t you offer to hold an AGM of the APHN in Hat Yai - or in Bangkok perhaps”. And he said, ‘Oh no, come to Hat Yai”. So we did, last February [2006]. And I said to Temsak, “That’s quite a good way to get publicity for palliative care in the country”.’³⁰