CID Officers from the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau have arrested a 55-year-old man on for providing abortions for 20 years without a medical licence. The arrest came after a local resident filed a complaint about a “fake doctor” offering abortion services.
The clinic was in a four-story, single-unit shop-house with signs in Thai and Burmese claiming they offered basic medical services, pregnancy tests, child vaccinations, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, and influenza vaccines.
When CID officials raided the clinic, they found Mr Thanaboon Kritsadakulthithada, 55, (the fake doctor), about to administer an injection to a patient with the assistance of a nurse from Myanmar.
The man claimed to have a medical licence, but officers were unable to locate his information in the Medical Council of Thailand’s online database. Upon questioning he broke down and admitted that he had been practicing without a licence since 2004.
He said he had been running the medical clinic on Phetchaburi Soi 31 for more than ten years.
According to police investigators the clinic had poor quality patient rooms in unsanitary conditions. They also discovered photographs of pelvic ultrasound results and patients giving delivery at the facility on his mobile phone.
Mr Thanaboon stated that he earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and midwifery in 1989 before joining the Royal Thai Navy’s medical corps and serving in a hospital in Chon Buri’s Sattahip district. He said in 2004, he began working as an unlicensed doctor at medical clinics to supplement his income.
He was arrested once in 2009 for illegally performing abortions, and was granted bail and was able to avoid further legal action on the charge until the case expired.
Mr Thanaboon said that for the past 20 years, he had passing himself off as a doctor and providing medical services without license at several clinics, using the expertise he gained while studying nursing as a navy officer.
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