Police forced me to quit: Pornthip

[Guest]

what i have feared to happen is now happening. dirty political games played by the wankers who were not there when they were needed, and who want to appear now as the heros they aren't.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/15/national/index.php?news=national_16085633.html

 

 

 

Forensics expert gives in to pressure and hands over duties to Interpol

 

Toiling day and night under terrible conditions to identify foreigners and Thais who died in the tsunami disaster was hard enough. But it was the constant squabbling with the police that finally broke the will of Khunying Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand to carry on.

 

?We have come to a conclusion. My team and I are preparing to quit and transfer the work of identifying bodies to the National Police Commission because we have been pressured by high ranking officials in the police,?? Porntip was quoted as telling Dr Chumsak Pruksapong, the director-general of the Central Institute of Forensic Science.

 

?If they?re making it so hard, I guess I?ll just have to quit,? she told Dr Chumsak.

 

Facing a massive workload of identifying thousands of corpses, Pornthip had became mentally drained,? Chumsak said.

 

On top of this workload, she was forced into constant squabbles with police over victim-identification proceedings, he said.

 

Pornthip, Thailand?s leading forensic expert, had admitted during earlier television interviews that she was considering resigning from her post after finishing her task as head of the Thai forensic team in Phang Nga, the province worst hit by the tsunami.

 

Yet that was before the police, some of whose high-ranking officers harbour grudges against Pornthip, moved in to take over the forensic work, insisting that her work did not meet international standards.

 

Identification procedures have been performed on at least half of the more than 4,000 corpses still unidentified. The adoption of new methodologies, which are in line with Interpol?s disaster victim identification protocols that the Thai police intend to launch, will cause further delays in attempts to repatriate still unidentified tsunami victims.

 

As animosity between Pornthip and General Nopadol Somboonsab, who is in charge of the police?s victim identification work, have escalated.

[Zaad]

Fucking assholes, no respect or appreciation whatsoever. :onfire:

[Neo]

One would think the work of Thailands leading forensic expert would meet international standards. If it is true that it does not, I would like to hear Dr. Pornthip's explanation. Personal issues aside, from just the content of that article it seems the police are doing their job which is to make the work meet the standard.

 

[Guest]

nops.

thai police and foreign forensic experts are here for show now. in the first crucial days after the tsunami, when identification was still easy they were not there. now, they have to appear as if they did nothing wrong. what is the easiest way - blame it on the person who was there from day one. yes, mistakes were made, but that was inevitable, when only dr. pornthip and her team were working while the rest made brief appearances just to piss off again. how can one little team of a few forensics, supported by less than a hunderd enthusiastic but untrained rescue volonteers cope for three full days with thousands of corpses?

i have been there during those days, i have seen everything, i have seen members of dr. pornthip's team breaking down sobbing from the stress and still keeping on working. because there was nobody else there. none of the western forensic teams, none of the thai cops who throw now dirt on dr. pornthip.

here, another article in today's nation:

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/15/opinion/index.php?news=opinion_16086203.html

 

An insider's account of work in the morgue at Wat Yanyao

Published on January 15, 2005

 

The dry-ice blocks spill their white vapour day and night. In the beginning, the blocks were arranged haphazardly. Some were even laid directly on top of the bodies until someone realised that they could damage the corpses and that tattoos were fading away, and they were placed between the bodies.

 

Then the hierarchy decided to build walls about 60 centimetres high with the blocks, dividing the field of death into zones of around 50 bodies. This arrangement had at least two advantages and one inconvenience.

 

The first advantage was to lock the cold into those areas, as in the open fridges in supermarkets, and to slow down the deterioration of the bodies quite a bit.

 

The second advantage was that those walls stopped the few hens that were audacious and greedy enough to try to peck up the delicious worms that festooned the mouths, the eyes, the wounds of the corpses with white garlands.

 

The main disadvantage of the walls was simply the unpleasant vapour. But it gave us, especially at night when volunteers were few, a daunting vision of the "beauty of Hell".

 

Our team was assigned the task of finding, on the bodies that arrived by truck, the maximum of clues to help identify them. But the vapour always rose, burned off by the sun, disturbing our task and fraying our nerves. A piece of cardboard had to be waved like a big fan for one person to be able to take photographs for reference, another to analyse and cut the clothing, to recover the labels, and examine the pockets, a third to look for tattoos, holes in the earlobes, scars left by surgery, fingernail polish and length etc. Only the one who inserted his fingers into the mouths of the corpses to probe the jaws, dental work and teeth had the advantage of not having to look at what he was doing.

 

One member of the team had to keep his hands clean, and his mission was to write on a form everything that each of us could find. Another had the task of providing water to wash the bodies and filling small bags with samples of hair, clothing, bracelets or buckles. When we had to examine small children, we chose to include all of the clothing, thinking that the mother, very certainly, if she were still alive, would recognise her child instantly, in this manner more efficiently and less painfully than if confronted with the rest of the corpse or photographs of it.

 

Even the gender of the victims was sometimes far from obvious. This is why it was necessary to work quickly. Corpses continued to arrive, and identification became more difficult with each passing hour: garments were getting blacker, hair thinner, both eaten away by putrefaction.

 

Assessing age was even more difficult.

 

But the most difficult, in general, was determining racial origin. Asian? European? For blond hair (if there was any left), no problem: comparing it with pubic hair would confirm racial origin. But for the others? Usually, the cheekbones were high for Asians, pubic hair sparser, longer and less frizzy, bones thinner and build slighter, and there might be clothes or tattoos more typical of one culture than another, religious indicators etc. Under the pressure of time, we probably made a lot of mistakes both ways.

 

It seems, however, that the race issue was the one to obsess some teams of white specialists freshly arrived from the West and who sometimes displayed an appalling arrogance and an awful contempt for Asian bodies, to the extent that we were ashamed to be Westerners too. These teams of experts added to their own bad reputation the fact that they barely pitched into the ugly work of opening the bags for first identification. They would take the already-unpacked corpses that we indicated, analyse them in their own zones (that they had "booked" by themselves for Western corpses only) and then, after a few tests, store the corpses in refrigerated containers. We heard that these insensitive experts were forbidding access to the containers by Thais who thought that one of their relatives could, by mistake, be inside one of them, which was very possible, because our indications were not always reliable.

 

The difficulty of our work was first and foremost to open the plastic bag and extract the complete corpse.

 

The stench was simply unspeakable.

 

Sometimes it was even necessary to interrupt work for a few seconds to allow exhalation.

 

Worms, almost as disgusting as the smell, as soon as they were exposed to air and light tried to crawl back into the corpses. Thus two to three minutes after opening a bag, the exam was easier for this reason, as we learned by experience: we opened the bags quickly by sets of ten before examining them in greater detail.

 

We probably did not have the most disgusting work in the management of the disaster. To recover bodies from the remnants of buildings, mud or stagnant water was certainly a lot worse. The only advantage of that work, compared with ours, was maybe to be confronted with fewer corpses to process in one day. But we are not sure that would was really such an advantage: the huge number of corpses quickly caused our brains to "switch off", allowing us to distance ourselves better from the humanity of those we were examining. For our part, we never saw a volunteer on an identification team stop working for reasons of disgust or psychological collapse. We didn't even see anyone vomit.

 

We observed that teams tended to gravitate towards other tasks, for example collecting DNA samples, that did not require the same proximity to the corpses. A cut with a knife in a leg muscle, then a piece of flesh in a bag, and one can go on to the next corpse. One does not have to take the corpse out of its own "body juices". Later, when the muscles were too decomposed, DNA teams would instead extract a bit of bone with strong scissors.

 

One dead baby had already been examined. After the DNA sampling and exams by the dental team, the baby was repacked in a new plastic bag then stored with about 100 other corpses. They were all to be taken away shortly for final cremation, normally the final procedure for the Asian remains. We had to believe the baby to be Asian, since the Western specialists either arrived too late or did not want to be involved with the more disgusting identification tasks. (They only analysed the corpses that were handed over to them by us as "a probable Western corpse".) A block of dry ice was put between the baby's body and another corpse, but this block crushed it a little, and the baby started to moan for a few seconds. Panic! Horror! The Thai volunteer who placed the block of ice exclaimed: "Khaw thot!" and wai-ed the baby to ask forgiveness for having accidentally touched it. We finally calmed him down and explained that it was common for gases, when exiting corpses, to strike the vocal cords. It was already late in the evening, but the following day we and the Thai were again at work in spite of everything, and even laughed about the incident.

 

There were a lot of others that will remain engraved in our sensitive memories for the rest of our lives, and not only tragic ones. A little stimulated by the strange ambience, we were smiling more easily than at other times, but it was not only nervous laughter.

 

We were working on one strongly built body, obviously male, the kind of fashionable guy with "small brain, big muscles" who could be easily imagined promenading along the street with exposed shoulders, trying to seduce pretty girls. We tried, before undressing him, to inspect his T-shirt, to find a logo or writing that could be useful for identification. Then all of us suddenly exploded in laughter! Insane giggles, which we were ashamed of, but over which we had absolutely no control! On the T-shirt, we could read in big letters written in English: "NIRVANA IS HERE!" And in smaller letters beneath that: "Friday the 13th".

 

The danger of our work

 

Bacterially, in our medical opinion, there were no big risks, because the decomposition was entirely the work of anaerobic germs that could not affect our bodies, which were correctly oxygenated by blood circulation. It would have been more dangerous to be in the ward of any hospital where someone was coughing up some pneumococci and someone else spitting out tuberculosis.

 

The real danger is psychological. I mentioned the ability of our feelings to switch off when confronted with so much death. This can take a bad turn. It is not so much that the volunteer must fear health problems or even madness because of the painful feelings involved in that kind of work; it is more a danger of losing a basic respect for the corpses.

 

I became aware of this when one woman on our team touched my elbow in confidence while continuing to stare at a Western doctor with a DNA team in action and said: "Never in my life would I like to be touched by such a man".

 

The doctor was pulling the thigh bone out of a small boy as one removes the bone of a chicken that is overcooked. The bone in one hand, he began, with the help of a machete in his other to chop the bone, simply to extract a sample. His behaviour had something of the hysterical to it, something of the butcher, some symptoms reminding one of "war madness".

 

Another danger was the nightmares that sometimes haunted the volunteers, even after they left the site. But here our team, not connected with any NGO, was protected, as we had worked together several years in a hospice for terminally ill Aids patients and had to deal with one or two deaths per day. Only a few weeks before the tsunami we had to stop working there because of misunderstandings with the hospice officials. (This is why we had time to go to the South.) Our experience in the hospice at least taught us that it was a lot more difficult to take care of the dying - whose names we knew, the tone of their voices, the pain, with whom we had a kind of relationship, than it was to examine the remains of those we knew nothing about, not even about their original looks. The media would have you believe the opposite.

 

Globally, the atmosphere in the Camps of Death at Takua Pa was and remained good. Humour and smiles were never lacking. My team would like to pay tribute to those Thai volunteers who, after several days of work, were still touching corpses, but only after a wai and after saying "Khaw thot" to express how deep their respect remained for the victims. And none of these Thais ever made any racial distinctions.

 

On top of the hierarchy of the camps was the famous Dr Pornthip. This woman is a miracle. She was able to be everywhere at all times, with an inimitable style, always smiling, patiently answering any questions, guiding one lost farang unable to speak Thai but who wanted to help, giving orders and making herself obeyed.

 

In spite of the extreme difficulties of her task and the suddenness, unpredictability and size of the tragedy, she managed to maintain a remarkable organisation that, of course, those farangs who were freshly arrived could never have understood: the use of what space was available, the ordering of the corpses, the systematic use of the sharp memories of those Thais responsible for specific tasks, the calm confidence and goodwill of the volunteers, the management of tonnes of donations offered to the volunteers. In Europe we would never have seen such a performance with so little financial support. We are absolutely certain of that. And yet Thailand has never experienced a similar disaster in all its history.

 

We had decided to go to Phuket on Day 2 of the disaster (we all live in Lop Buri, about 1,000 kilometres from Phuket). We did not have to pay for the plane tickets, and it took us less than 30 minutes to get them. There, like all farangs, we first thought that nothing was organised. We lent a helping hand at the airport first, as a medical team and as translators, working late into the night. It was necessary to help the injured arriving in huge numbers to be transferred to Bangkok. Most of them had already received basic care and had X-rays and diagnoses with them. Infections were often already contained with the best antibiotics.

 

The day following our arrival, Day 3, we went to several hospitals in Phuket, Takua Pa and the surrounding area. Everything was under control. Efficient and numerous physicians gently made us understand that we would probably be more useful elsewhere. We returned to the airport, where this time the Army had taken over all of the organising and we were useless.

 

We were even able to fly home for New Year's Eve! Everyone on our team was fascinated by the great organisation. We gave our names in case one of us was needed again. After New Year's, we were asked to return to Takua Pa for corpse identification, and once again everything was organised: free plane tickets, free dormitory, free food, protective garments, spare clothes in place of our smelly ones as soon as work was over. Someone even offered a free massage to anyone who wanted it!

 

We know that some farangs complained: they just could not see through the signs of disorganisation in the normal mess that accompanies such an extreme situation. But they were wrong. One can easily misunderstand orders or decisions, or even not see the underlying organisation in such a country if one is used to working somewhere else or does not have an overview of the entire management.

 

Last, my team would like to say thank you to all of the Thais. In the midst of this enormous tragedy they all remained human, very human, very very human. We thank you, our Thai friends, for your politeness and humanity and for the expertise that you put at the disposal of the victims. Cremating them would have been easier, but you accepted our strange requests not to.

 

Dr Yves Wana

 

Special to The Nation

 

Dr Yves Wana is a Belgian doctor who has worked at Lop Buri's Aids temple for a number of years. He may be reached by e-mail at wanayves@hotmail.com or through regular post c/o M Coutand, 84/8 Naresuen Road, Lop Buri 15000. Please also visit the website of the Aids hospice at www.aids-hospice.com.

[sayjann]

thanks Fly for the report,but i have to admit i only got a few paragraphs into it.

not that i did not want to read it,but just that i did not want read of the anguish of many wonderful people trying to help.

 

Dr.Pornthip seems to be a wonderful person to me and because of hatred towards by her own Countrymen she feels she cannot carry on.

that to me is a complete DISGRACE.

doesn't Thaksin and his cronies realise she is trying to show the World that Thailand wants to do their best for everyone?.

[Flashermac]

<< Thaksin and his cronies >>

 

 

What makes you think they care about the rest of the world?

[elef]

PM Thaksin thinks dispute over bodies can be resolved

Published on Jan 15 , 2005

 

 

 

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said today that he believes the conflict over identifying last month's tsunami victims between the police and the Central Institute of Forensic Science can be resolved amicably.

 

 

Thaksin said the conflict between the Central Institute of Forensic Science's Deputy Director Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan and the Royal Thai Police over the issue could end peacefully because both sides have a strong determination to do their jobs.

 

 

The problem arose after police legal advisor Pol Gen Nopadol Somboonsub suggested that all the bodies be kept in the Phuket, while Khunying Porntip said the corpses' would worsen if the bodies are moved to another location.

 

 

The prime minister said that eventually identifications of corpses must be done, and bodies sent to their relatives accordingly.

 

 

Khunying Potjaman Shinawatra, the prime minister's wife will seek to resolve the issue between the two sides this afternoon.

 

The Nation

[Guest]

Fly wrote:'Forensics expert gives in to pressure and hands over duties to Interpol ...<mega snip>..

 

Re: Pornthip...

It's both sad and amazing when egos, power and small minds get in the way of doing good!!

[Guest]

Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan is a little powerhouse that cannot be ignored.

 

She will prevail. You can believe that, and take it to the bank. She is a national treasure.

 

It ain't over until the fat lady sings.

 

She's tired, and beat up right now. But this is not a woman to underestimate. She's a freaking tiger. She'll be back, with a vengeance.

 

HT

[elef]

HT,

 

read the article 3 posts up. As she is supported by HM the King and Thaksin also (thalenoi mentioned the Queen too) I don't think she can lose.