At 14 years old, Santad Sirachainanta climbed to the rooftop of his family’s house in Kanchanaburi, nestled in the jungles of Thailand. Nursing an arm he broke playing soccer, Santad wrote 'I want to be a doctor someday' on the roof.
"To be a doctor in Thailand is not easy," says Santad, who now goes by Dr. Sira. "Even though my Dad was a businessman from a big city, my mother was a farmer. I grew up in a small, rural town, very poor. To have a better life, I have to go to a prep academy in Bangkok for high school."
After graduating top of his class, Dr. Sira applied to medical school. At the time, there were only three in the country, making competition stiff. Against the odds, he was accepted and began his journey to a 50-year career as an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB/GYN) in Kona.
In 1970, Dr. Sira received his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, and began his internship in Northeast Thailand. There, he met Ruamporn, a young OB/GYN nurse who lived next to the hospital.
"We had different shifts, but when she would walk home, I would follow along on my bicycle," says Dr. Sira, who married Ruamporn in 1971. The newlyweds spent the first four years of matrimonial bliss in Akron, Ohio, where Dr. Sira had a rotating internship, followed by residency training, at Summa Health System (formerly St. Thomas Hospital) from 1971 to 1975.
"Then I got a job offer letter from Alaska, and from Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Chisato Hayashi in Hawaiʻi," says Dr. Sira, explaining that after some negotiating, he decided to move to Hawaiʻi with his wife, two children, and mother-in-law in July 1975. Later that year, at Kona Community Hospital, Dr. Sira delivered what would be the first of over 10,000 babies, a number that includes babies delivered beyond the hospital walls.
"Sometimes, mother doesn’t even make it into the hospital. Boom! The baby comes out in front of the hospital!" Dr. Sira says with a chuckle. "I once took an ambulance to a patient’s house to deliver a baby. And I delivered a baby on a coffee farm."
"For a while, Dr. Sira was the only doctor delivering babies from the North end to the South end of this Big Island," says Melanie Moses. "Dr. Sira delivered my children and many of my grandchildren. He also saved my daughter’s life and took care of me. He once closed up his office, drove me to the hospital, and told me he is an emergency driver, orderly, nurse, and doctor… he makes the calls!"
"In order to save lives, you have to have good intuition. I have about five or six near-death deliveries, but nobody ever died in my service," says Dr. Sira, adding that one of those was the tiniest baby he delivered. Despite weighing in at a mere three pounds, the baby lived.
"Dr. Sira delivered my four older siblings," says Sharla Houlding. "I was due in December 1986, and my mother wanted to schedule the C-section for Christmas Day, but he told her, 'Not a good day. We have holiday. You have baby on the 26th.'"
"In 1986, I was a one-man show and so busy," says Dr. Sira. Sharla was one of 500 deliveries in that year alone. Nearly one year later, Janice Kaaloa realized she was pregnant for a fifth time.
"I was a Kaiser member, and when I went to my appointment in December 1987, the doctor told me he wasn’t allowed to help because I was already in my third trimester. So I had no doctor, and now I didn’t have an insurance carrier. There was only one person who would help me. Dr. Sira," Janice shared at a celebration for Dr. Sira this past June. At her first appointment with him on the fortuitous date of December 26, Janice discovered she was pregnant with twins. After an emergency appointment with Dr. Sira on March 10, 1988, her due date, he sent Janice to the hospital even though she had no pain. Her daughters Jana and Jevon were born that day, a minute apart, via C-section.
"Dr. Sira truly saved Jevon’s life by insisting I go to the hospital, as she was breech,” Janice recalled. Jevon (Matsuyama) became the mother of daughter Jena on March 12 of this year. Jana (Naone), who had become Jevon’s surrogate before she realized she was pregnant, gave birth to James on April 28. “I’m so grateful Dr. and Mrs. Sira accepted me despite my uncertain situation. All these years later, my grandson, James, is baby number 10,280 to be delivered by Dr. Sira."
Dr. Sira was the first doctor in Kona to perform a vaginal birth after a C-section, and has made natural births possible when other doctors would have insisted on a C-section. When Sharla found out she was expecting her third child in 2021, her pregnancy was textbook until the night after her 38-week checkup.
"I started experiencing labor pains, and they were progressing fast… we barely made it to Kona Hospital. A nurse rushed me up to the room and instructed me to keep from pushing until the on-call doctor arrived. No one could get a hold of the on-call doctor, and my doctor was not on call either. I tried to NOT PUSH, but it was nearly impossible," says Sharla. "After an eternity, I heard someone say: 'Dr. Sira! You’re still here? Quick, WE NEED YOU RIGHT NOW.'"
By that time, Sharla’s pain had become nearly intolerable, and she begged him, "PLEASE, can I push?” He yelled back: “DON’T PUSH." And after a series of similar pleas from Sharla and commands from Dr. Sira, he instructed her to breathe.
"Sharla recalls that when the intensity of the pain decreased, Dr. Sira yelled, "'Okay, PUSH LIKE YOU HAVING A BABY!' and after the third push, Ivy arrived." "After Dr. Sira left, the nurse who checked on me said, 'You’re really lucky Dr. Sira was here. If he didn’t go in and turn her himself, she never would have come out naturally.'" Dr. Sira was actually about to leave the hospital for the day, but because he loves what he does so much, he performed a miracle without using any tools—just his gifted hands and decades of experience.I thank my lucky stars that he allowed me to have that delivery.”
A true testament to the importance of serving the community with expertise and heart, Dr. Sira models the power of longevity to others in the medical field.
"I met Dr. Sira when I was a medical student, shadowing and learning from him for over a month at his busy practice. It was immediately evident that he knew all his patients so well, and he was very knowledgeable," says Dr. Cedric Kuo, OB/GYN. "Dr. Sira was here when no one else was. He’s always thinking ahead. As a physician, he is who we all strive to be."
Dr. Sira’s legacy of compassion and unwavering commitment to countless women and families inspired the Kona Community Hospital OB/GYN nurses to coordinate Dr. Sira Day, a celebration of his outstanding service spanning over 50 years, which Janice attended on June 15. A father of three, Dr. Sira also celebrated his 80th birthday this year.
When asked the secret to being happy and healthy at his age, he answers without hesitation: "Whatever your job is, if you love it, keep doing it," which is why Dr. Sira still has his own OB/GYN practice in Kona, where he continues to provide exceptional care to generations of women.
“He performed a miracle without using any tools—just his gifted hands and decades of experience.”
“I’m so grateful Dr. and Mrs. Sira accepted me despite my uncertain situation. All these years later, my grandson is baby number 10,280 to be delivered by Dr. Sira.”