CID Officers from the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau have arrested a 55-year-old man posing as a doctor and providing abortions for 20 years without a medical license. The arrest came after a resident filed a complaint about a “fake doctor” offering abortion services.

The clinic was in a four-story, single-unit shophouse 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 a medical license, but officers could not 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 license 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 Chon Buri’s Sattahip district hospital. 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, 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 twenty years, he had passed himself off as a doctor and provided medical services without a license at several clinics, using the expertise he gained while studying nursing as a navy officer.