Yao Noi Island has a small hospital and one senior doctor, but this isn’t where people go when they have a motorbike accident, chronic backache or pain during childbirth. Tell anyone on the island you have a stiff neck, a painful broken toe or a repetitive strain injury and they’ll send you directly to Ying Rah.

Yao Noi has a population of approximately 3,000 and literally hundreds of these people were brought into the world by the same pair of healing hands. Ying Rah, as she’s known to the locals, has lost count of just how many babies she has delivered in her lifetime, but we worked out that it was about 26 a year for over 40 years. She’s 79 now, and is still helping people, although nowadays she sticks mainly to localized problems that don’t involve too much energy.

Apart from the fact that she can’t walk far and she needs more naps than before, Ying Rah is a surprisingly sprightly looking 79-year-old. She burst into a toothy grin as we climbed the steps into her traditional Thai-style abode and asked her daughter to serve us water. She was born in this very house as was her mother before that. And it was her dear mother who taught her the healing and birthing techniques that have treated so many of her fortunate kinsmen.

Ying Rah (“Flower Woman”) started school in 1931 at the age of six, and left school in 1933 at the age of eight. Her father was a rice farmer and her mother a traditional birth assistant. In those days, it wasn’t considered particularly important to have an education, just enough for the basics, and most families in Thailand couldn’t afford high school, so the children left early to follow in the footsteps of their parents. When Ying Rah wasn’t planting or cutting rice, she would go out “on call” with her mum and watch baby after baby being born until, at around 20 years of age, she set up on her own and let her mum take a back seat at home.

There was no hospital on the island at that time, nor on nearby Yao Yai Island, so Rah was in great demand. People would come at any time of the night or day to tell her someone had gone into labour, and she’d pack a bag and some herbal medicine, sometimes not returning home till four days later. One year, two doctors visited Yao Noi to teach locals about basic health care and first aid, and Ying Rah studied massage with them. After that she incorporated massage and herbal medicine into the birthing process, and has never looked back.

She’s still as popular today as she was years ago and, despite feeling weary on many occasions, she never refuses a customer. She says she feels destined to help people. Allah, blessed be his name, put her on this earth to do this job, she says. She’s famous on the island for repairing broken or sprained ribs, but the physical effort required for that is really too much for her now, so she sticks to smaller jobs such as wrists and ankles.

One of Ying Rah’s secrets is a herbal potion (including samoon prai), a remedy that seems to have a multitude of uses. She wouldn’t quite tell this writer what was in it, but did say that one ingredient was part of the same family as ginger. The plants in this panacea are picked locally then pressed and dried into small blocks. When she needs one, Rah mixes it with coconut oil and massages it into the skin.

Ying Rah sits rather majestically among the pots of herbs scattered about her living room as we have a chat about her family. She married a local builder at the age of 16 and went on to have six children. Sadly, two of the children died in early childhood of disease, but the other four still live with her in the house her father built over 100 years ago. Her husband passed away not long ago, so the rest of the family, as is typical in Thailand, are always at hand to help. Regrettably however, none of them have shown any interest in learning Ying Rah’s skills. So, when she’s no longer of this world, a legend and, we fear, some of her knowledge, will be lost. PHUKET Magazine wishes Ying Rah a long and healthy life.