Thailand does not have a centrally organised professional emergency medical and rescue service. Instead volunteer organisations fill the void. These are staffed in the main by volunteers who see the opportunity to help injured folk as a way of increasing personal karma in the Buddhist faith.
Since Thailand's rescue services are voluntary with little regulation they are also open to abuse. Often referred to as Buddhist body snatchers, volunteer groups have been known to fight over territorial rights and indeed individual trauma victims. The reason for this is quite straightforward, since hospitals pay the crews a fee for each body they deliver to the hospital or mortuary. Fees are said to range from 500-1000 Baht with private institutions paying higher.
Whilst the capital of Thailand, Bangkok, is now covered by two main rescue groups, in the provinces it is a different matter. Often local temples will provide emergency vehicles as those shown in today's image taken at a temple in Kuiburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan and located at the side of the main highway to the South of Thailand. The vehicles and expenses are funded by donations to the temple and fees received for delivery of the bodies.
Whilst at Kuiburi I took the opportunity to take an unobserved peek in the back of the "ambulance." Equipment was very basic, a spinal board and oxygen cylinders along with a gurney where all that I could see. One of the other vehicles had some basic rescue equipment.
Crews for the vehicles are usually trained in basic first aid, although training in advanced trauma care is limited to very few and usually only provided in vehicles from the larger hospitals. Sadly in Thailand many deaths occur after rescue, when trained medical intervention, as provided by rescue units in the UK or US is lacking. High speed driving training skills are also not on the agenda.
This lack of adequate medical response units may well explain why most victims of Thai road traffic accidents end up being taken to the nearest hospital in the back of a convenient pickup truck. There are also many rumours around that corpses are often stripped of their valuables before they arrive at the mortuary and that belongings are removed from crashed vehicles once the injured party is removed from the scene.
The Thai Government are well aware of the situation and to be fair are trying to bring more regulation to this burgeoning private industry, however for the time being at least, the Buddhist body snatchers will continue to prowl Thailand's roads.
If you enjoyed this post why not subscribe to my RSS feed
2 comments:
I suppose the moral of this post is don't get knocked over on a road if you're wearing too much gold or carrying too much money.
This post surprises me because I would have thought people going into a profession like this would tick the right boxes in terms of values and attitude. I am shocked that people are literally being robbed blind.
The obvious answer would be to pay the ambulance crews and not the hospitals but that's logic.
Martyn you are certainly right regarding gold! However I am sure many people who volunteer do so for the right reasons albeit in the belief that they will gain karma.
Sadly others clearly do it for things like the adrenalin rush and publicity.
Several well known Thai Soap actors volunteer!
Because of the way health care is organised here, then until there is some central or even provincial control regarding standards it remains a lottery if you are unfortunate enough to have an accident.
Post a Comment