The former Kwai River Christian Hospital (KRCH) was situated in western Thailand, in the mountainous region of the Thai-Burma border, 18 km from the town of Sangkhlaburi, in the Province of Kanchanaburi.
Since its inception in a room of the first Doctor’s house in 1960, the hospital’s aim had been to offer high quality medical care and to present the Gospel to a marginalised, poor and neglected community, in an area where the majority of the population have no nationality or registration papers and are therefore not eligible to use government health services.
For 60 years KRCH was a busy rural mission hospital with outpatients and inpatients departments and a public health unit, which treated each patient as an individual without bias towards their religion, nationality, race, gender or wealth, providing essential and emergency treatment to all, regardless of their ability to pay. The mission of the hospital was serving the health needs of the community and sharing the hope and love of the Gospel.
In October 2021, with the opening of the new Sangkhlaburi Christian Hospital in Sangkhlaburi, the hospital staff were reassigned and KRCH was scaled down to a clinic with capacity for a 4-bed overnight observation stay.
These pages are a tribute to the many staff, volunteers, and friends at KRCH who have joined us “serving the least on behalf of the Almighty”.