Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pun Thongchumnum, Vice President of Phuket Campus, explained that Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are international development standards followed by many countries, and PSU focuses on the third goal: Good Health and Well Being, with an emphasis on health promotion and providing quality healthcare services to people of all ages to ensure their well-being.
The university's Good Health and Well Being initiatives include comprehensive teaching of health sciences, producing staff to help taking care of people in the region, and supporting research in various departments and faculties, alongside providing welfare for staff and students to have good health and access to quality healthcare services.
In 2020, PSU’s Phuket Campus established the Andaman Health and Wellness Center with the idea of expanding healthcare in the Andaman zone. The center focuses on the following three areas:
- production of healthcare professionals with expertise and language skills, to ensure proper knowledge transfer and quality treatment services to both Thais and foreigners;
- construction of a modern hospital to treat specific diseases in the Andaman area, offering services to both locals and international visitors from all over the world, ensuring good quality of life for people of all ages;
- research and innovation creation by integrating local wisdom under the supervision of researchers and academics.
In addition, Phuket Campus operates the International Health and Science College to produce medical staff for various departments in order to solve public health problems in the Andaman and other areas of the country, with the goal of producing doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, medical technicians, and Thai traditional medicine practitioners. The project also opens educational opportunities for people in the area, with the goal of becoming a center for public health education in the ASEAN region.
Modern hospitals have been built to treat specific diseases in the Andaman area: Songklanagarind Hospital Phuket Campus, Dental Hospital, and Thai Traditional Medicine Hospital. These also provide Andaman locals treatment for complex diseases that other hospitals in the region cannot treat. These initiatives build confidence for tourists to travel in the Andaman province and Thailand, by providing knowledge and manpower to deal with new health problems that may occur in the future, including adequate support for the aging society.
researchers and academic staff with a wide range of knowledge and abilities. The university’s Science Park drives research and innovation in healthcare, alongside unique discoveries derived from endemic plants and economic crops that have been invented for further research development, resulting in innovations that support healthcare.
Phuket Campus has carried out another important mission in Phuket and the Andaman: the revitalization of the tourism economy in the form of health tourism, through the Andaman International Health Promotion Center. The unit has been established through coordination with the government, private sector, and local agencies such as the Department of Health Service Support, Thai Charter, Health Charter, Research and Innovation Fund Management Unit, and local government organizations.
Researchers and academics of PSU and the Science Park share knowledge through special lectures, training sessions, and presentations of health innovations for entrepreneurs in the service and tourism sectors in the upper southern provinces. This is considered the first phase; using knowledge to develop a Wellness Package in the form of health tourism. The initiative will help stimulate the economy and create sustainability in tourism, corresponding to SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. Of the three goals that have been set, we believe that health for sustainable development will help ensure the well-being for people of all ages, and the society.
