Thaksin gets VIP treatment at hospital, no police security presence seen
Police have not increased security inside or around the building at Police General Hospital since former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was transferred from Bangkok Remand Prison to receive urgent treatment there early on Wednesday.
Nation reporters who visited the hospital’s King Bhumibol’s 88th Anniversary Building on Wednesday morning – where Thaksin was transferred to receive treatment on the 14th floor at 1am – found that no plainclothes or uniform police were dispatched for security.
Only regular security guards were in the 20-floor building.
The 14th floor where Thaksin was admitted is a special ward for VIP patients. The floor has two six-room wings for patients. Thaksin was admitted to room No 1401, a suite.
Doctors have given him medicine to dissolve intravenous clots and reduce high-blood pressure and anxiety.
Nation reporters saw no police, either plainclothes or uniformed officers, on the 14th floor. No officials from the Corrections Department were deployed there. Only nurses were seen.
The Police Hospital said in a statement that Thaksin was transferred from the prison hospital to the Police Hospital at 1am after doctors found he needed urgent medical attention and the prison hospital lacked specialists and medical equipment for providing such care.
The statement said the Police Hospital had signed a memorandum of understanding on November 1,202 with prison hospitals for transferring inmates for urgent care.
