Thai envoy to fight wife's death in Seoul, Bangkok

The Thai ambassador to Korea plans to take the Seoul hospital where his wife died to court both here and in Thailand, embassy officials said Tuesday.

Ambassador Chaiyong Satjipanon has filed a criminal complaint with the Korean police accusing Soonchunhyang University Hospital of medical malpractice and a lack of professionalism leading to the death of his wife Thitinart Satjipanon. He intends to pursue similar proceedings in Bangkok.

He claims that staff negligence at the hospital's international clinic led to his wife's death on Sept. 19 at the Hannam-dong hospital, where she had been admitted three days earlier complaining of abdominal pain.

The Thai Embassy published Tuesday a detailed account of events leading up to Thitinart's death, from the insertion of an L-tube to clear an obstruction in her intestine following her arrival at the hospital on Sept. 16, after which she was kept for observation.

The following day, she was overcome with pain and fainted after being taken for an X-Ray at 10 a.m.

The Thai embassy's account states that: "The hospital made no effort to call any doctor, nurse or CPR team to rescue Madame," while Korean staff of the Thai embassy sought assistance to no avail.

After failing to find help the party made the 20-minute trip back to the patient ward unaided. A medical team then took Thitinart to the Intensive Care Unit where she remained on a life-support machine until it was switched off on Sept. 19 at 9:30 a.m.

"It is our fervent hope that no other member of a diplomatic corps or any Korean would fall victim to the medical maltreatment, risk their health or meet with untimely death like the spouse of the Ambassador of Thailand," the embassy statement read, adding that an autopsy conducted in Bangkok on Sept. 27 indicated that the cause of death was "the lack of oxygen to the brain and (lack of) prompt treatment."

An embassy spokesman said Tuesday that the patient had a heart attack while awaiting assistance outside the X-Ray room, adding: "The cause of the heart attack was that she was shocked with pain and she did not get pain killers."

The ambassador has called upon the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korean Medical Association to investigate the medical standards and management of Soonchunhyang Hospital and the international clinic, but neither authority has yet responded.

Satjipanon first made the allegations on Sept. 22 to officials at Yongsan Police Station against Soonchunhyang Hospital director Dr. Shin Byeong-jun, and International Health Care Clinic head Dr. Yoo Byung-wook and their staff.

Proceedings are being launched by the ambassador personally but the Thai foreign ministry is aware of the situation. Dean of the diplomatic community in Korea, Uzbek Ambassador Vitali Fen, has written to Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Kim Sung-hwan calling for a review of the hospital's international services stating that: 

"It appears that due to the negligence and delay of the hospital authorities, proper and timely medical aid was not provided to the patient causing her untimely death."

The hospital maintained that its staff had not been negligent nor were they guilty of malpractice.

A hospital spokesman said: "The hospital staff feel very sorry for the loss of his wife but the hospital did everything it could do. We are now cooperating with the police investigation."

Thailand's Teflon tour industry to weather floods

A foreign tourist walks past a shopping mall fortified with sandbags in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011. Thailand is once again in tourist turmoil as floods linger, but ever resilient industry unfazed.

BANGKOK—The tuk tuk drivers outside the Holiday Inn in Bangkok's still-dry downtown sit idle, calling to passers-by in hopes that someone, anyone will climb in for a ride in their colorful pedicabs.

Fares are hard to come by as the floodwater creeping ever deeper into the Thai capital have washed the streets of tourists.

Trying times like these are nothing new for those in Thailand's all important tourism industry, and with each new calamity come dire predictions that the kingdom's image and its allure to foreign tourists may be irreparably harmed. 

But each time it recovers and its beaches, jungles, spas and urban malls are soon swarming with visitors again.

Call it "Thailand's Teflon tourism industry," said Imtiaz Muqbil, the executive editor of Travel Impact Newswires, which writes about tourism in Asia.

The past decade has seen Thai tourism -- which accounts for about 6 percent of the economy and employs more 2 million workers -- rocked by crisis after crisis. Among the disasters: 

The SARS epidemic, a tsunami, a military coup, the occupation by anti government protesters of the capital's two airports and multiple rounds of deadly street fighting.

The most recent violence, in April and May last year, ended with nearly 100 people killed and several landmark Bangkok buildings set ablaze, but Thailand had a record 16 million international visitors in 2010, showing how quickly tourism can bounce back -- even from from frightening images of mayhem broadcast worldwide.

The country's worst flooding in half a century, which began in July and has steadily worsened through an epic monsoon season, has killed more than 500 people nationwide and left everyone from street vendors to restaurant owners to hoteliers saying business in Bangkok is down.

"This is high season now and a lot of tourists have just disappeared," said tuk tuk driver Thongdee Thongrin. His business has been cut in half since sections of northern and western Bangkok began to flood two weeks ago.

But as a whole Thailand seems to once again be weathering the latest storm, with tourists still coming but skipping Bangkok and heading south to beach resorts like Phuket and Pattaya or north to Chiang Mai, all of which have been spared flooding.

"The public and private sectors have been hit by so many crisis over the years that they are really good at managing it and have the responses worked out to a T," Muqbil said. 

"In Boy Scout terminology, they are perpetually prepared and ready with the response and recovery drill the moment it is necessary."

International tourist arrivals at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok's international gateway, were up 6.7 percent in October over last year, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Arrivals at Phuket's airport were up 28.5 percent for the same period.

Most international airlines were still operating normally to Bangkok, while domestic airlines have been adding flights due to strong demand from people heading to other parts of the country not affected by the flooding, said Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines.

he floods will obviously have some effect on tourism, but the recovery will be quick -- perhaps as short as a month, said Martin J. Craigs, CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

"Resilience is built into the DNA of Thai tourism," he said.

Craigs and several others in the industry mentioned that some of the "disaster movie" images going out to the world were not an entirely accurate reflection of the situation on the ground. 

He said photos of planes sitting in floodwater at Don Muang airport gave the impression that both of Bangkok's airports were closed.

"Frankly its all down to the old expression: If it bleeds it leads. In this case, if it leaks it leads," he said.

While many key tourist sites and downtown areas are still dry, vast parts of the northern and western outskirts have been turned into inland lakes, submerged by fetid floodwater that have led to calls for the evacuation of 12 of the city's 50 districts.

Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Suraphon Svetasreni said his agency was working hard to get the word out that Thailand was still very much open for business. He said he hoped the disaster would affect international arrivals by only 2 percent.

While specific numbers are yet to be calculated, the floods "have affected the number of bookings in Bangkok for sure," said Sakkarin Thorsawai, the director of the Thai Hotels Association.

Joey Tulyanond, owner of the Old Bangkok Inn and the soon to open Bangkok Tree House hotel, said "maybe about 80 percent of our guests have canceled even though neither of our properties has seen a single drop of floodwater."

At Soul Food Mahanakorn in Bangkok's trendy Thong Lor neighborhood, owner Jarrett Wrisley said he felt lucky to still have a restaurant that was dry and operating when so many others in Thailand had lost everything.

He said his business was off 60 to 80 percent last week, but it has already started to bounce back.

"Thailand, for the past several years, has been in this strange cycle of crisis and rebirth, and I suspect that the country will rebound in a few months," he said. "But first we have to put the pieces back together."