Hundreds of buses rerouted, hospitals plead with protesters

Doctors call for protesters to open at least one lane of traffic to facilitate medical services at major hospitals.

Hospitals in the vincinity of Victory Monument include Rajvithi, Ramathibodi, King Mongkut, Children's General and Phya Thai II.

Commuters have turned to sky trains on Thursday after pro-Thaksin protesters, mostly taxi drivers, blocked road access the Victory Monument on Thursday.

However the BTS train station at the Victory Momument has been crowded with the desperate commuters. Its staffs solved the traffic problems by allowing the commuters to take the train first and pay the fares at their destination station.

Dozens of taxi drivers used their vehicles to block the roads to and from the Victory Monument since noon Thursday to pressure the government to resign.

They started blocking the inbound Rajvithi Road in front of the Center One shopping mall at 12:30 pm and later on blocked the inbound Phayathai Road.

The members of the Taxi Community Radio Club said if the government refused to resign by 4 pm, they would use 20,000 taxis to block all roads in Bangkok.

As of Thursday's afternoon, police have closed several main roads and warned motorists to avoid travelling on routes used for red-shirt rally.

The closed-down roads include Ratchawithi Road from Din Daeng intersection and Victory Monument to Tuek Chai intersection, Phaholyothin Road from Second Cavalry Division (near Sanam Pao) to Victory Monument, Phaya Thai Road from Phaya Thai intersection to Victory Monument.

Kamphaengphet V Road and Rama VI Road in front of Democrat Party headquarters have also been closed.