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Jun
14
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Medical tourism is a growing segment of Thailand’s tourism and health-care sectors. In 2005, one Bangkok hospital took in 150,000 treatment seekers from abroad. In 2006, medical tourism was projected to earn the country 36.4 billion baht.
Thailand offers everything from cardiac surgery to organ transplants at a price much lower than the US or Europe. Thai medicine also features a higher, more personalized level of nursing care than westerners are accustomed to receiving in hospitals at home. One patient who received a coronary artery bypass surgery at Bumrungrad International hospital in Bangkok said the operation cost him US$12,000 (8,200 euros), as opposed to the $100,000 (68,000 euros) he estimated the operation would have cost him at home.
Hospitals in Thailand are a popular destination for other Asians. Another hospital that caters to medical tourists, Bangkok Hospital, has a Japanese wing and Phyathai Hospitals Group has interpreters for over 22 languages, besides the English-speaking medical staff. When Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala needed medical care in 2006, he went to Bangkok.
Today many Thai physicians hold US or UK professional certification. Several Thai hospitals have relationships with educational facilities in the US and UK (for example, Sheffield Hallam University has links with Bangkok}. One Thai hospital, Bumrungrad International, states that many of its doctors and staff are trained in the UK, Europe and the US. Bumrungrad International was accredited most recently in 2005 by an American group in order to ensure an international standard of medical services.
The US consular information sheet gives the Thai health care system high marks for quality, particularly facilities in Bangkok, although the World Health Organization ranks the Thai healthcare system at number 47, which is below the USA’s ranking at 37 and the United Kingdom’s ranking at 18. The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office web site states “There are excellent international hospitals in Bangkok but they can be expensive”.
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