Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
A Thai television whistleblower spoke on air about more than two years of restraints, forced pills, and locked rooms behind the gates of a licensed care center.
A woman identified only as Phat appeared on Thai television to describe her time inside a nursing home in Tha Muang district, Kanchanaburi, where she said she had been held against her will by her son.
Her account triggered a police raid that uncovered conditions far outside the facility’s permits.
Investigators from Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau arrived at the Sothornchai Nursing Home on October 5, together with health officials and reporters.
They found prison-style metal bars, razor wire on the outer fence, and beds fitted with metal cages, structures Thai media compared to grilled-fish cages.
The center was licensed for 50 beds but held 92 patients, 75 men and 17 women, according to The Nation Thailand.
Eighty-one of them were psychiatric patients, even though the home carried only an elderly care license, not a medical one.
Closure order and criminal probe
On October 7, the Department of Health Service Support revoked the operating license and ordered the facility permanently closed.
Deputy director-general Akhom Praditsuwan announced that the center had expanded from a permitted 1,600 square meters to 4,641 square meters and had been providing unauthorized psychiatric care.
Operating outside an approved area carries up to six months in prison and a fine of up to 50,000 baht under the Health Establishment Act. Running unlicensed medical services can bring up to five years and a 100,000-baht fine.
Pol Maj Gen Pattanasak Bupphasuwan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division, ordered officers to collect CCTV from inside the center and gather witness evidence before deciding on further legal action.
Owner denies abuse
The facility is run by a former Air Force nurse referred to as Maeow, who denied Phat’s account.
She said the barred rooms were used only for patients with severe psychiatric symptoms who could fall from bed, become violent, or damage property.
Phat said she was handcuffed, forced to take sleeping medication, and kept in degrading conditions for more than two and a half years before contacting her sister in secret and asking for help getting out.
Residents whose families want them home are being released, while the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security is taking in those with nowhere else to go.
