The Cost Of Thailand's Coronavirus Success: Despair ... And Suicide
From a small corner storefront in Bangkok, Suchart Prasomsu, 53, a rice dealer, leads a rescue team of 30 volunteers. They rush to car crashes or crime scenes. They also retrieve the bodies of those who died in their homes, and since the start of the pandemic, part of their job has become trying to prevent people from killing themselves.
Sacks of rice are stacked among disinfectant tanks (used to clean the apartment of a neighbor who contracted COVID-19), Prasomsu's rescue diving suit (for when someone has jumped into the river), a Buddhist shrine, a cage of songbirds and his poodle, Lion.
Parked outside is the Harley he uses to weave through Bangkok's traffic. His shortwave radios — one that picks up police reports in his riverside district and the other for the entire central region of Thailand — crackle in the background.
Prasomsu has been a rescue volunteer for nearly 30 years. He says the reports of suicide have ticked up since the country announced a lockdown on March 26 in the effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
He and his team have responded to at least 10 police reports of people who are publicly suicidal in his area. He talked to one young woman who nearly killed herself after losing her job at a factory.
He remembers her because she backed away from the edge.
Sometimes, he responds to a call and there's nothing left but a pair of flip-flops. It becomes a job for the divers to recover the body, Prasomsu said. "Then we can help by giving them a proper burial."
Coronavirus: success and tragedy
The case and death rates from COVID-19 in Thailand are among the world's lowest, with about and 58 deaths, as of Thursday. Thai epidemiologists say their health care system — one of the finest in the world — had a major role to play. So did a strict lockdown.
