Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin has asked the Information Technology Crime Suppression Centre to investigate the leak of messages from a Medical Council member Line group, commenting on former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s controversial stay at the Police General Hospital for six months.
Kittikorn Lohsoonthorn, secretary to the public health minister, said today that negative comments about Thaksin, allegedly by a member of the council, could be considered gross misconduct and may suggest that the council’s decision to discipline the three doctors who enabled Thaksin’s stay at the hospital was biased.
On Wednesday, a lawyer representing the three doctors, Chawaphon Kamolkanawut, lodged a petition with Somsak, asking him to investigate the allegedly biased comments by members of the Line group.
Vice Minister Thanakrit Chitarirat, who received the petition letter, claimed that some council members might be biased against Thaksin, but noted that the investigation has nothing to do with the Medical Council’s upcoming meeting to consider the minister’s veto of the council’s resolution to discipline the doctors.
The council requires the votes of at least two-thirds of the council’s 70 members to override the veto and uphold its resolution.
Thai PBS, meanwhile, has discovered that not all members of the council’s Line group are council members and that the comments in question were not made by a council member, as they have been advised to be cautious about making or sharing comments in Line groups.
