Here’s a stark contrast in healthcare service levels… During mid-August 2007, Christchurch Hospital A&E department were advertising on local radio… Not promoting their services, actually! No, instead they were requesting people NOT go to them unless it was absolutely essential! They were asking potential patients to go to their own doctor… and you just try finding one of them on a weekend! Basically, it seems unless your condition was life-threatening and immediate emergency care was required, they did not want to know you…

Here in Thailand, the hospitals not only cope, they are well staffed and welcoming. For heavens sake, they even have VALET PARKING!  You arrrive feeling frail, and you’ll be assisted from the vehicle while someone take’s care of parking it for you! People will focus immediate professional care on you!

Unlike Christchurch Hospital, where parking is still a nightmare… Try arriving there (as I did a while ago) with a broken Archilles tendon… I eventually found a park almost a kilometre away from the hospital, and hobbled very cautiously and very slowly to the Accident & Emergency department. On entry, I was asked my problem at the reception desk. On explaining my predicament, I was rudely ticked off for walking in! No sympathy when I suggested it was somewhat more dignified than crawling in on hands and knees, and that I’d already had to drive 130 kms to get there!   :-)

From that point, I was instructed to sit in a wheelchair and there I waited for over 3 hours before any more attention was squandered on me…

Musings by Jon

Some of us are old enough to remember when nursing was a vocation and nurses excelled at all the little things that add to patient comfort and make a hospital stay as bearable as possible. That’s why nursing is always up near the top of polls of the most trusted and admired professions. We worked long hours but always made time to reassure patients and truly care for them with compassion and skill.

All that has gone in many countries now. Nurses are now technicians and so busy there is no time to care. This is true in many Western countries I believe. The health system is stretched - patients wait, lawyers pounce and technology rules. High labour costs have ensured fewer nurses on the ground.

So, what about Thailand and what do patients say about Thai nurses? Here the labour costs are comparatively low. Nurses are well trained and add to that the cultural imperative of hospitality in this society and you have nurses who attend to, indeed anticipate, every need. And there seems to be so many of them! They always seem to have time and are not only a smiling presence but know what they are doing. Patients always say they have had a level of care far better than they would have received at home.

I interview many patients here for adult stem cell therapy and for PAD. Without exception they say that the hospital facilities and the medical and nursing staff far surpass what they would have expected to receive. True, many thought Thailand was a third world country BEFORE they came. That simply isn’t true. The private hospitals here are internationally accredited and offer state-of-the-art facilities, more like a five-star hotel than what we would consider normal for a hospital. People desperately ill who come to Bangkok for adult stem cell therapy for heart failure, PAD, congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy go home as the best and most vocal of advocates for Thailand’s medical system.

I hope that Thai nurses stay just as they are. Attentive, skilled, compassionate, smiling and caring.

Last week I met a couple from Texas who had come to Bangkok as their last hope of getting help for heart failure. The patient (the husband) had exhausted all avenues of help in the U.S. and had been told to go home and await the inevitable. During the past few years he had steadily declined in health and had spent a small fortune on a cocktail of medications. He arrived in a wheelchair, tired, very ill and exhausted.

In a simple procedure his cardiothoracic surgeon here (who, incidentally, has spent many years working in the U.S.) withdrew about half a pint of the patients own blood which was taken to a lab where the therapeutic stem cells were isolated and multiplied many times. These were returned to his body by direct injection into his heart muscle.

The patient had been told that it may take up to six months before he joined the 75+ percent who felt considerable benefit after adult stem cell therapy.

Just days later the man got out of his wheelchair and walked without effort and without experiencing any shortness of breath. He was sleeping better and had no angina. His wife, with tears in her eyes, called it a miracle. Yes, it is. The body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself - regenerative medicine is just now finding out how. He joins the hundreds who havebeen treated in Bangkok for heart failure, cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure and who have gained a new lease on life. Good luck to him.

Jon

Thailand medical tourism brings lots of visitors to Bangkok in search of high quality, cost-effective healthcare services. ThaiMed Associates are Thailand-based “Healthcare Service Brokers” who match client’s medical requirements with medical service providers, clinics and hospital facilities. 

ThaiMed Associates is operated by Jon Bradshaw and Ben Kemp, two expatriate Kiwi’s living and working in Thailand. Jon is an NZ “Registered Nurse” and has worked extensively in Thailand as a journalist covering medical tourism issues.

We describe ourselves as “Heathcare Service Brokers” because we operate just like mortgage brokers… A mortgage broker matches client’s circumstances with bank’s lending criteria,  faciltiates the relationship between the two parties - and is paid a commission by the bank in return for their efforts.

As Healthcare Service Brokers, we match our client’s requirements and budgets with our partner hospitals, dentists and cosmetic surgeons… We facilitate the provision of affordable, high-quality medical care, negotiating across cultural and language barriers. In return, we receive a modest commission from the service provider for faciltiating the arrangement. 

However - you, as our client, pay exactly the same price you would if you’d arranged the service yourself. The difference being that you do so with the benefit of our advice and local knowledge, avoiding any pitfalls and mis-understandings in the process!

We have competitors… but our Unique Points of Difference are that;

• We are “real” people, not a faceless corporate entity based in the USA…
• With us, the guys that own the business DO the business…
• We actually LIVE in Thailand - and know the place like home!

 Kind regards

Ben & Jon