PRACHIN BURI, Thailand – Abhaibhubejhr Hospital has begun evacuating inpatients to a 200-bed field hospital set up at Chakrapong Military Hospital as flooding deepens around its compound.

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The first group moved yesterday included the seriously ill, sick children, mothers with newborn infants and two elderly men. Officials said water in and around the hospital was about a metre deep, with boats ferrying patients to the emergency building before army four-wheel-drive trucks carried them onward — only six at a time, on a journey of 40 minutes to an hour.

Doctors and nurses accompanied the patients throughout, and drivers were forced to take extra care as the trucks met deep water and obstacles.

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One woman said her father, hospitalised for brain surgery after an accident, had to be evacuated just two days after his operation. Chakrapong Hospital lists 37 red-category inpatients, 50 yellow and 80 green, with some of the most critical transferred elsewhere for further care, including three seriously ill newborns sent to Ramathibodi and Nakhon Nayok hospitals.

-Thailand News (TN)