Gun-toting midwives ride to the rescue in Bangkok
A specialist team of traffic police are bringing vital healthcare to the Thai capital’s gridlocked streets
With a pistol secured to his holster and radio strapped to his jacket, Mana Jokoksung jumps on his motorbike for another day of attempting to control Bangkok’s relentless rush-hour congestion.
But the lieutenant in the Royal Thai Police’s traffic unit has an unlikely second job for a traffic cop: midwifery.
Since 1997, Lt Jokoksung has delivered about 100 babies on the streets of Bangkok. He is part of a team of “motorbike midwives” who have helped more than 250 mothers give birth amid the traffic and escorted thousands more to hospital.
The need for this unusual job-share is rising, as Bangkok’s population has grown and the time spent waiting in traffic over a six-mile distance jumped 15 per cent from 2021 to 2022.
“I was nervous the first few times, my first instinct was that I didn’t want to deliver the baby,” said Lt Jokoksung, who has been nicknamed “Dr Mana” by his colleagues. “But then the head started to come out, and I just had to get on with it. Now it’s much easier… but [it’s] still such a relief when the baby starts to cry, so you know it’s breathing and healthy.”
In a city where the notoriously bad gridlock is only getting worse, roughly 160 men in the Bangkok Royal Traffic Police Unit have become medically trained first responders – darting past cars, trucks and tuk-tuks on two wheels to reach mothers in labour well ahead of any ambulance. If there is time, they escort the car or taxi to the nearest hospital. Otherwise, they spring into action.
“The fastest we travel is not more than 100km [60 miles] per hour, but because we know the traffic flows and the shortcuts we can be in places very quickly,” said Lt Sakchai Krasayan, as the police officers prepared to take The Telegraph out on a motorbike patrol last week. “Places that would take 40 minutes to reach take us 15.”
Aussayaporn Srichantra does not like to think about what could have happened without the unit’s speed. In 2013, the then 29-year-old and her husband got stuck en route to hospital – a half an hour drive turned into two hours, then three. Panic set in.
“I was trying every short cut I could think of, but everywhere was blocked,” said her husband, Suthep Srichantra. “Honking my horn didn’t help either… of course I was afraid, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do.”
After frantically phoning friends for advice, the couple got in touch with the traffic police – within 10 minutes, Lt Jokoksung and his colleagues arrived. Initially, they thought they had time to escort the car to a nearby hospital, but as they set off Mr Srichantra banged on his windscreen.
“Suddenly Aussayaporn was in so much pain, there wasn’t time to go anywhere,” he said. “Mana looked again and could see the baby’s head, so he got his [gear] out and delivered her right there… in the back of our car.”
“I didn’t realise until [afterwards], but we’d stopped close to a crowded bus stop,” added Mrs Srichantra. “When the baby came out, Mana said it was a healthy little girl and everyone in the area was very happy… she was the 50th baby Mana delivered.”
Now that baby, Pichayapa, is a shy nine-year-old who hopes to one day become a vet. The family are still in frequent contact with Lt Jokoksung – Pichayapa and her two sisters call him “Daddy Mana”, a nod to the huge role he played at midday on Oct 4 2013.
“It’s all a bit of a blur, I was in so much pain – but looking back, we were very lucky,” said Mrs Srichantra. “People can lose their lives during delivery – it’s very dangerous… and the ambulance only arrived after I’d given birth. So we were lucky.
“I think the project should be expanded to every city in Thailand, and globally in countries where the traffic is really horrible,” she added.
While the Bangkok unit was set up in 1993 with funding from the royal palace, it was not until 1997 that the team started to help mothers in labour. Their remit has since gradually expanded – now, the officers deliver CPR as well as babies, and act as “high speed couriers” transporting donated organs from one hospital to another.
Lt Krasayan himself has been involved in 50 births in Bangkok – many on the side of the road, some in homes where people waiting for gridlocked ambulances have run out of time. But that is nothing compared to Lt Jokoksung, said Lt Krasayan, laughing and patting his friend on the back.
“We call him Dr Mana, he’s not known as a police officer now… I think for the city, it’s good that we’re here and that we’re training others.”