Drought sees hospital run dry
KHON KAEN: The province’s Wiang Kao Hospital is suffering a severe water shortage with not enough water to clean medical equipment.
Seksan Boonprasit, acting Wiang Kao district chief, said agencies had been asked to send water trucks to supply water to Wiang Kao Hospital, one of four hospitals in the country facing acute water shortages due to the drought.
The hospital must send medical equipment to be cleaned at other hospitals in the area, which is having an impact on patients’ treatment, Mr Seksan said.
The other three hospitals hit by water shortages are Chaopraya Abhaiphubejhr Hospital in Prachin Buri, San Pa Tong Hospital in Chiang Mai and Phra Thong Kham Hospital in Nakhon Ratchasima.
Of the seven artesian wells drilled to seek underground water to ease shortages in the district, only two could provide water for consumption in communities, Mr Seksan said. The water from the two artesian wells has now been used up, he added.
The Public Health Ministry’s permanent secretary, Sophon Mekthana, has urged all hospitals nationwide to prepare to cope with the dry spell by reserving clean water for cleaning medical equipment.
The ministry has set up a war room to monitor the drought situation and is ready to provide help to hospitals affected by water shortages, Dr Sophon said.
The Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department has declared areas in need of urgent drought relief in 12 provinces covering 1,900 villages, most of which are in the North and the Northeast.
In Ayutthaya, a 100-metre section of an embankment road along a dried-up canal in Bang Ban district collapsed yesterday, leaving a hole about two metres deep and more than 30 metres long in the middle of the road. No one was injured when it subsided.
The collapsed section of the road along Bang Kung canal is near where the Khlong Bang Kung water control station is being built, Bang Ban district chief Witsanupong Sa-nguansatjapong said after leading officials to inspect the damaged road.
Authorities declared it off-limits to all vehicles. There are two houses near the collapsed section of the road.
The road at that point was almost 10 metres above the dry canal bed, where the water control station is being built to help prevent future drought in the area.
It follows the earlier subsidence of a long section of Leab Khlong 13 Road in nearby Pathum Thani’s Thanyaburi district on Tuesday afternoon, which left a crevasse four metres deep and 120 metres long.