The medical support team landed at Phuket International Airport on a special Bangkok Airways flight from Songkhla at about 1:30pm.
The team is from the Songklanagarind Hospital located at the PSU Hat Yai Campus. The hospital is a university teaching hospital affiliated to the PSU Faculty of Medicine and serves as the main teaching hospital for all of Southern Thailand.
Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana was on hand at the airport to welcome the team, who will be joined by 12 more medical personnel to be assigned to the PSU Phuket field hospital, which has been set up on three floors at the sports centre building on campus.
The team then made their way by bus to the Phuket campus, where on arrival they paid homage to the statute of Mahidol Adulyadej, Prince of Songkla and father of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Mahidol Adulyadej is also regarded as the father of modern medicine and public health of Thailand.
Assoc Prof Dr Phan Tongchumnum, Vice Chancellor of the PSU Phuket Campus, said the university believed it had a duty to its best to help people during the current COVID situation.
“The COVID-19 situation in Phuket, is harder than anywhere else,” Dr Phan said.
“The medical personnel of Phuket have worked hard for two months and are starting wear down. Looking forward, the burden is still a long way from being lifted.
“Aware of this problem, the Prince of Songkla University discussed this issue and decided to send a medical team from the university to help take care [of patients] and to participate in solving this problem until the job is done,” Dr Phan said.
“This is to encourage all people of Phuket, with whom we will be join in combating this problem together,” he added.