A private hospital in Ratchaburi has suspended a doctor and launched an ethics investigation after a 31 year old man died of a heart attack, hours after he was allegedly refused a heart test, told his chest pain was anxiety and sent home.
Panupong Meesuk collapsed and died at home in Ban Pong district on the afternoon of July 16, in front of his wife and young child. An autopsy found two blocked coronary arteries.
His wife, a schoolteacher known online as Kru Sai, posted a tearful video on her TikTok account demanding justice, accusing a doctor at San Camillo Hospital of dismissing her husband’s symptoms and refusing to examine his heart. The video has been viewed more than 4.8 million times and set off a wave of anger across Thai social media, with many users sharing their own stories of being brushed off at hospitals.
@sinesaiiz คลิปที่แล้วเสียงหาย** แล้วทรายต้องทำยังไงต่อไป รู้สึกไม่อยากอยู่อีกแล้ว สงสารลูกเหลือเกิน สงสารแฟนที่สุดด้วย เค้าไม่มีโอกาสเห็นลูกเติบโตอีกแล้ว #ครูทราย #โหนกระแส #ช่วยเหลือเพื่อนมนุษย์ด้วยกัน ♬ เสียงต้นฉบับ – sinesaiiz
A week of warning signs
According to Kru Sai’s account, her husband had been experiencing sharp pain that started in his fingers and spread up to his chest, along with chest tightness. Colleagues at his workplace had noticed him sweating heavily for almost a week and became so concerned that they arranged for him to be taken to hospital.
He went to San Camillo Hospital, a private hospital in Ban Pong that he was registered with under Thailand’s social security scheme. The scheme assigns insured workers to a designated hospital where they receive treatment at no extra cost.
Passed between three doctors
What happened next, as described by Kru Sai and later confirmed in outline by the Social Security Office (SSO), was a morning of being shuffled between departments.
Panupong was first seen by an internal medicine doctor. Because his records showed a history of tendinitis, he was referred to an orthopaedic specialist. Kru Sai says the couple tried to explain in detail that this was nothing like tendon pain, that it reached his chest and felt tight, and that they suspected a heart problem. The orthopaedist agreed the symptoms were not bone related and sent him back to internal medicine.
There, Kru Sai says, the couple asked the doctor to order an electrocardiogram. He refused. She alleges he accused her of being neurotic, saying she had read too much on the internet and worked herself up, and that her questions were stressing her husband into a panic, which explained the sweating. She says he compared her husband to a patient afraid of needles.
According to her account, the doctor reasoned that a man in his early 30s had only a 3 to 5% chance of heart disease, and mocked the idea that information from AI or the internet could outdo a doctor. She says he even suggested her husband sleep in a separate room from her and the symptoms would go away on their own.
Kru Sai says she pleaded repeatedly, offering to pay for the test out of her own pocket rather than use social security, and asked to be transferred to another hospital. The doctor refused and sent Panupong home with a follow up appointment scheduled for several days later.
@sinesaiiz ใจสลายมาก รู้สึกผิดมาก ทำไมฟูมไม่ได้อยู่ขวัญใจเติบโต ทั้งที่เค้ารักของเค้ามา ถ้าหมอแค่ให้ตรวจ ทำไมอะ😢 #ครูทราย ♬ เสียงต้นฉบับ – sinesaiiz
Dead by 4pm
At around 4pm the same day, Panupong went into shock at home and died in front of his wife and child. Kru Sai later posted that he had picked up their child from school shortly before he collapsed.
The autopsy result showing two blocked coronary arteries directly contradicted the anxiety diagnosis. Kru Sai says the doctor later admitted to her that he had misdiagnosed her husband.
“If the doctor had just ordered the test, why couldn’t he,” she wrote in one post, saying she was heartbroken that her husband would never see their child grow up.
Hospital apologises and suspends the doctor
On July 18, San Camillo Hospital issued a formal statement expressing its deepest condolences and announcing that the treating doctor had been suspended from duty until a fact finding investigation is complete. The hospital said it had appointed an investigating committee with outside experts to review the entire treatment process, and pledged the review would be thorough, transparent and fair.
The statement did little to soften Kru Sai’s grief. Sharing it on her Facebook page, she wrote that the doctor was lucky to still have the chance to be suspended, while her husband never even got the chance to breathe again.
Later that day the hospital’s director, Father Piyasak Wongwai, a Catholic priest and physician, attended the funeral prayers for Panupong and apologised to the family in person. Visibly emotional and at times choking back tears during interviews, he described the doctor’s conduct as a personal failing that could not be accepted under medical ethics, and vowed the hospital would not protect him.
He revealed the doctor is an internal medicine physician aged over 70 who had worked part time at the hospital for more than 10 years, and who could not currently be contacted. The hospital had arranged a meeting between the doctor and the grieving family after the death, but the director said the two sides gave conflicting accounts of what happened, so the matter would be left to the investigating committee, which includes officials from the SSO and the Medical Council of Thailand.
The director added that if the family takes legal action, the hospital will accept responsibility without dispute.
Hospital could lose social security patients
The SSO moved quickly once the story went viral. Its medical services bureau sent an urgent letter ordering the hospital to explain itself and hand over Panupong’s complete medical records by July 18, while deputy spokesperson Assistant Professor Dr Nakarin Pinpathomrat visited the hospital to inspect its standards of care.
The agency confirmed the timeline of events, that Panupong arrived on July 16 with breathlessness and chest pain radiating down his arm, was passed from internal medicine to orthopaedics and back, was diagnosed with anxiety despite the family’s request for a heart test, was sent home, and went into shock and died at around 4pm.
If investigators find the hospital’s care fell below required standards and breached its medical services contract, the SSO says it will immediately cut the hospital’s capacity under the social security scheme, reducing the number of insured patients it is allowed to serve. For a private hospital that relies on social security contracts, that is a significant financial penalty.
The SSO also confirmed the benefits Panupong’s heirs are entitled to: a 50,000 baht funeral grant, a 30,000 baht death benefit and 58,405 baht in accumulated old age pension contributions plus interest. If his death is found to have resulted from substandard medical care, the family can additionally claim initial compensation of up to 400,000 baht through the SSO’s medical harm review process.
A familiar complaint
The case has reignited a long running debate in Thailand about the standard of care social security patients receive at contracted private hospitals, which are paid per registered patient and are frequently accused of cutting corners on tests and treatment. Health authorities have also used the case to remind the public that chest tightness combined with heavy sweating is a classic warning sign of a heart attack that should never be ignored.
The family says it will pursue the case to the fullest extent of the law.
@sinesaiiz ยังยิ้มด้วยกันอยู่เลย ยังไม่ทันได้ลาเลย ถ้าหมอไม่วินิจฉัยพลาด ไม่ปฏิเสธการรักษา ฟูมคงไม่ไปแบบนี้ คนนึงตายจาก คนนึงตายทั้งเป็น😢 #ครูทราย #โหนกระแส #ช่วยเหลือเพื่อนมนุษย์ด้วยกัน ♬ เสียงต้นฉบับ – ปรีชา ปัดภัย
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