Thailand: The United Nations for the sick
Thailand has always been known for its temples, beaches, and pornography, but more and more travelers are coming here to check into Konmin Hospital (Bumrungrad Hospital). This hospital is opulent and technologically advanced. In terms of the number of foreign patients, no other hospital in the world can match it, so it is called the "United Nations of patients". The hospital has more than 500 doctors, most of whom have trained overseas. The key to the hospital's ability to attract so many foreign patients is the very low cost of care compared to Western countries. What would cost $800 in the U.S. would cost only $100 here.
A CBS reporter once interviewed Byron Bonwell of Shreveport, Louisiana. A year and a half ago, he had a heart attack that doctors said would require bypass surgery to cure. He had no health insurance and came up with $100,000 out of his own pocket. "It's no fun to spend all that money on a life, it's no fun to live, it's better to die." He said.
Bonwell's condition continued to worsen, and it just so happened that one day he read an article in Business Week about Cummins Hospital and learned that he could get a heart bypass there for only $12,000. He went to the Konmin website, chose a doctor, and flew to Thailand the same day. He was on the operating table three days after being admitted to the hospital and went home healthy half a month later.
Talking about the conditions of Konmin's care, Bonwell raved, "All the doctors I saw had practiced in the U.S.," he said, adding that the doctor who operated on him had worked at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. "I wondered how they had so many registered nurses. In the U.S. hospitalization is full of caregivers and aides, and a hospital full of registered nurses would be lucky to have one. In Thailand, my ward alone had eight registered nurses. The care is so good it can't be described."
It's not just treatment that's cheap in Thailand, but beauty treatments don't cost much either. Kim Atwater of Bend, Oregon, originally went to Thailand purely for tourism, and on the way decided to stop by the Konmin Hospital for a cosmetic procedure. The total*** cost of the procedure was $1,500, including the cost of a single room during her hospitalization. When it comes to Kangmin, Aitwat is also full of praise.
"Which of those hospitals I've stayed at in the U.S. can't compare to this one." The wards are like five-star hotels. The hospital also has clothing stores and restaurants to suit the tastes of every country. She was right. The head of the Konmin Hospital, Karl Schroeder, admits that the hospital's business philosophy is to create an atmosphere where patients don't feel they are in a hospital.
India: from exporting doctors to importing patients With health care services to attract tourists and increase revenue, Thailand is now unable to specialize. India has taken off to be the leader in medical tourism. Currently traveling in India, in addition to overcrowding, poverty and these familiar sights, in the dusty street side, you can often see the new luxury and grandiose private hospitals. This is half because of the growing middle class and half because of the need to attract overseas patients.
Doctors from India's seafarers make up the bulk of the private hospitals. Though earning one-tenth, or even one-twentieth, of what they earned in the United States, these people are determined to return to their home country because there is a use for them. Vikas Kohli is a pediatric cardiologist who has worked in New York and Miami. He says, "There are 1,500 to 2,000 pediatric cardiologists in the US and there are only four in India even for me."
The best-known of India's private hospitals is the Apollo Group, which is India's No. 1 and the world's No. 3 in size. According to Agari Kapoor, director of the group's international patient office, they compete with Thailand mainly on the basis of price advantage.
Anne Bell, who works for the New Delhi-based British High Commission, has just given birth in a hospital in India. She says she's glad the baby was born in India and not Britain, because in India you stay as long as you want after the birth, with medical care for the baby and the mother, "whereas in Britain you have to be out of the hospital within five hours as long as it's a normal birth." In the hospital in India she had a single room and a separate bathroom, which would never be possible in the UK, not to mention the people who rehabilitated her with massages and yoga. Also, Indian doctors are world-renowned and all speak English. Maybe the doctor who is treating you is the same one you used to meet in Europe or the US because they all have experience of practicing medicine abroad.
Stephanie Sedlmayr of Flint Beach, Florida, had a hip problem that cost tens of thousands of dollars to operate on. It just so happened that her doctor was Indian, and she decided on a whim to travel to the doctor's country for treatment. She didn't have health insurance either, and she didn't go to India to save money because the hip revision she needed hadn't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States. The unapproved surgery, if it is to be done at all, can only be done in the name of a clinical trial, but it's not cheap at all.
Hip revision has been officially recognized in India, and Vicky Bose, the doctor who operated on Sedmer, has done more than three hundred cases. While such a procedure would cost $20,000 to $30,000 in the United States, Sedmer spent only $5,800 in India. And there is a full-time nurse to take care of him after the operation, and when he rings the bell for anything, the nurse comes in at the sound of his voice.
An hour's drive from the hospital where Sedlmayr was treated is the Seaside Retreat. After her surgery, the hospital recommended she go there to recuperate. "It was $140 a day for the two of us, my daughter and I, including a very nice breakfast, and it was open until 10:30 a.m."
These stories of even traveling and healing, while they sound wonderful, are not without risk. For example, it's also a 20-hour plane ride to India, where malaria is endemic in some areas, and some patients complain of gastrointestinal problems. If the surgery goes wrong, you have no choice but to go to the local court in India and sue the hospital for negligence.
?