The National Institute for Emergency Medicine (Niem) will begin disbursing a 969-million-baht budget it has earmarked to settle overdue payments for emergency response services provided by rescue foundations.
The overdue payments will be cleared in September before the new fiscal year kicks off in October, according to Niem.
The budget is set for release in response to complaints this week by eight rescue foundations in the Northeast, which said they had not received financial support from the institute for months.
The overdue payments for services rendered from October last year to February this year are expected to be disbursed in August and September, which precedes the onset of the new fiscal year in October, according to Niem deputy spokesman Karan Sriwattanaburapha.
Normally, Niem pays the financial support to rescue foundations twice a month. However, a prolonged glitch in its database system has delayed the payments and caused the institute to be unable to reimburse the foundations sooner, according to Mr Karan.
Mr Karan said Niem had contracted National Telecom (NT) to streamline its database for a more efficient disbursement of funds in March. During the revamp, database processing had to be done manually, which added to the delay.
He gave his assurance that Niem's new payment database will be more secure and more widely accessible.
"We are grateful to those rescue workers and volunteers who are always by the people's side regardless of the situation," said Mr Karan.
Earlier, rescue foundations in the Northeast suspended their emergency response services, which they delivered to the general public for free, as financial support from Niem had stopped.
According to the Phutthatham Hook 31 Foundation in Nakhon Ratchasima, at least five of its 50 rescue teams had stopped operating emergency ambulance services as they did not have money for fuel.
This was the case despite the foundation accepting public donations. The foundation said it is more than two million baht in the red.
The foundation added its volunteer teams who still operated had to pay for petrol themselves. They kept the services going because people in emergencies needed them.
Another foundation, Sawang Metta Thamma Sathan, in Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima, also faced similar budget difficulties.
