An incident where police fatally shot a man armed with a firefighter's axe at Surin Hospital on Friday has stirred debate on whether such a response was commensurate with the threat. Only a fair probe and transparent public communication will clear the air and improve safety in public hospitals.
The 27-year-old man -- who was a patient at the hospital at the time -- had a record of mental issues and alcohol problems. He was admitted for an appendectomy and reportedly snapped after the operation.
He broke a fire-fighting glass cabinet to take the firefighter's axe before chasing doctors, nurses and other patients. He also threw an oxygen tank at a patient.
Two police officers fatally shot him after he refused to put down the axe and charged at them. Surin Hospital has sued the police officers on a homicide charge.
Pol Maj Weerapan na Lampang, chief of Muang Surin police, has ordered a probe into the shooting and promised fairness for all concerned.
But it begs the question of whether doubt will be cleared. Surprisingly, Surin Hospital immediately revealed that CCTV in that ward was not working.
Despite Muang Surin police insisting that two policemen followed guidelines in responding to the man's actions, police have refused a request from a relative of the dead man wanting to view footage from the officers' body-worn cameras (BWC).
The relative was told the video footage from a BWC is a criminal record. While the explanation is legally understandable, it raises the question of why some video footage from successful police crackdowns gets released to the media.
What happened at Surin Hospital reflects a rise in violence occurring in public hospitals. According to the Ministry of Public Health's data, 12 people -- three of them medical personnel -- were killed, and 67 were injured in acts of violence in public hospitals from 2012 to 2020.
In the year 2019 alone, there were 26 physical attacks, a significant leap from only a single case in 2012.
The most serious offences were physical brawls among hooligans, with the most notorious being in March 2020 when three young men chased another into the emergency room at a state hospital in Nakhon Phanom. The injured man was dragged from a patient bed and nearly beaten to death.
The question is what the Ministry of Public Health has done to make hospitals a genuinely safe space.
So far, the government has largely depended on legal penalties as a way to deter the problem of violence in hospitals.
The ministry presses charges while the criminal court often hands down the maximum jail term; the attackers at the Nakhon Phanom hospital were jailed for 12 years with the sentences commuted to six years.
However, legal penalties are not the solution; only a conceived and rehearsed security plan can do it.
After serious incidents occurred in 2022, the ministry and the Royal Thai Police said they would develop cooperation on safety responses.
Since then, there have been prescribed measures and guidelines such as more CCTV installation, tight security protection, and background checks for patients with mental problems.
The ministry has also established patient background checks to monitor patients with a history of mental illness.
Apparently, such measures fell short at Surin Hospital last week.