Years later, Thai Catholic team still helps tsunami survivors

Published: 2007-09-13

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNS) -- Mental and physical health are the focus of a church-run volunteer medical team that has been helping survivors of the December 2004 tsunami. The Bangkok-based St. Louis Foundation and St. Agnes Church in Krabi, more than 400 miles southwest of the capital, Bangkok, are in the last year of a mobile medical service project for the survivors. Two days a month, a medical team provides free health care in the tsunami-damaged areas of Krabi province. Normally, two doctors and six nurses, accompanied by a priest and a nun, are assigned to the service. Father Chatchaval Suphalak, president of the foundation and vice president of the Bangkok Archdiocese's St. Louis Hospital, said the foundation helps people regardless of race or religion. "St. Louis Hospital is a church hospital that helps those who are sick, and we are glad to help our brothers and sisters without anything in return," he told the Asian church news agency UCA News in early September.

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .