Bangkok’s public health volunteers were recognised for their hard work at a yearly event on Friday.

The ceremony, hosted on March 10 every year by Bangkok’s Health Department, aims to boost the morale of volunteers by presenting the exceptional ones among them with honorary certificates.

This year’s event, the 25th National Public Health Volunteer Day, was held at Prince Palace Hotel in Bangkok’s Pom Prap Sattru Phai district.

Presiding over the event was Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt, who said public health volunteers are like capillaries that supply blood to each part of the body as they can reach everybody in the community.

“Public health volunteers provide primary healthcare services and educate the communities of disease prevention, which is crucial to the public health system,” he said.

Bangkok currently has 11,568 volunteers or an average of one volunteer per 41 households.

“We aim to increase the number of volunteers by about 2,000 next year, which should help bring the average closer to that of other provinces – one volunteer for every 15-30 households,” he said.

Chadchart also urged volunteers to keep up-to-date with the latest medical developments. He said medical knowledge keeps shifting as can be seen from the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years – it was an illness nobody had experienced before.

He also thanked all volunteers for their diligence despite receiving no compensation and reminded them to take care of their physical and mental health.

This year, 12 public health volunteers received honorary plaques for exceptional service at the provincial level and 60 received certificates for exceptional services at the health centre level. Meanwhile, 149 volunteers were recognised for their long-standing service starting from 10 to 35 years.

Decorated volunteers will serve as leaders in providing medical knowledge to communities and raising public awareness on the importance of healthcare.