Sheryl

As above - safety off switch readily at hand

And side railings you can easily grasp

ROFL....

No its ok to take them in, i guaraantee that noone will even care to look at it. In case you run out you have 50 kamagra gels for around 800bht and they all work damn good. Not once have i been cheated. And you get viagra in ALL pharmacies without prescriptions. Like 1 zillion pharmacies to choose from

Cannot be gotten without a prescription in "all" pharmacies.

And cannot be gotten legally without a prescription in any.

Can you just let everyone know you fitted the fan and are okay as I think playing around with the wiring and electrics in Thailand are a recipe for trouble and best left to a local electrician for what it costs.

Yes, fitted , working OK and I did not electrocute myself.

Thanks

I don't know much but I do know enough to turn the power completely off before touching the wires and such - which is more than the so-called electricians out where I live seem to.

Every time I or my home has come near to harm from electricity, it has been has been courtesy of the local electricians.

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It was never supposed to be available to other than migrant workers and most places have gotten the word on that. But TIT, there could be a hospital or two that still issues them. They will only do so to people resident in their catchment area though, that's how the "30 baht" system works. Which hospital is based on where you live.

Making health insurance compulsory for visa extensions has been bandied about for a long time. And there are newspaper articles about hospitals losing money on uninsured expats at least once a year. It is a long-standing problem and one worsening because the average age of resident expats is rising.

It will no doubt come to pass, in some form.Just don't know when and in what form.

But it is not necessarily what your friend was referring to. The timing of the meeting - 2 days before the new overstay penalties go into effect - suggest maybe more to do with that.

+1 - all the 7 elevens have them...though at Macro will cost less as yo ucan get them in bulk.

Coconut water is indeed an excellent fluid/electrolyte replacer but not as convenient to buy, carry home and store. The sachets are easy to carry with you too if going to a gym. Then just mix in a water bottle.

Travel insurance or health insurance ? Travel insurance policies( of UK origin) are normally restricted to periods of no more than 30 days. Health insurance, setting aside the prohibitive cost for older age groups and the restrictions on pre existing medical conditions, is generally sold as an annual policy. There is no suitable product for those who come here for periods of more than 30 days but don't reside here on a permanent basis

There are a number of companies that will issue travel insurance for periods longer than that.

World Nomads will insure for up to one year, so will many others - including AXA UK

BUPA UK's single trip policy covers up to 91 ays

I am not aware of any TV members who had IOL for correction of presbyopia except in conjunction with cataract removal.

It has only very recently become available in Thailand (only 2 places that I know of: Rutnin and TRSC, and even there I don't think they have done many). So I can't recommend having it done here in Thailand if that is what you have in mind. Better done in a Western country where the technique has been around longer, and that is also where you are more likely to find some online first hand accounts.

Hope I can get a quick answer as I'm in the middle of doing this:

Had a wall fan repaired and need to hook it back up

Stupidly, when I detached it from the incoming wires I did not make note of which wires went to which.

On the fan it has a grey coated wire and another wire coated grey but with a =black stripe.

The input wires I have to attach them to are black and grey. I am pretty sure the black is the live wire and my guess is that it should attach to the fan wire that is grey with a back stripe but am not sure.

Can anyone confirm?

Thanks!

You're over 65 and it's a first time policy. No underwriter wants this business, that's why it's so expensive. You're lucky to get a quote in the first place.

No, it is so expensive because he opted for the most expensive policy covering everything included OPD, which is unnecessary, and did not opt for even a minimal deductible or copay.

Either he did not understand the options and much about how insurance works, or was wanting it to come out ridiculously high so as to reinforce a preconceived belief and justify remaining uninsured.

I have been in public hospitals mostly up country due to lack of private I was never charged more than 7000 THB and that bill was for a shit load of tests and 2 night stay I paid and left too easy. Firstly if you can afford to be in holidaying in Thailand you can afford a bill of less than 10,000THB & secondly how do you leave the hospital with out paying....those who never paid send there names to emigration ban them or wait till they come back and hit them up giving the rest of us a bad name.

Bills in government hospitals can exceed 1 million baht and often do. A 2 day stay and some tests bears no relation to what occurs after say a catastrophic accident resulting in major head trauma, fractured pelvis etc etc - several neurosurgeries, other surgeries, long stays in ICU.

Even elective surgery if complicated enough and requiring implantation of prosthetic devises (stents; titanium rods etc) can run several hundred thousand baht at a government hospital. If you google the innumerable internet campaigns that have been launched to raise money for farang unable to pay heir hospital bills in Thailand you will see what sort of sums have been involved. No 10,00 baht, not even 100,00 baht. much more.

BUT - since this happens to only a small minority of people,and tourists in general are a healthy bunch to begin with, through risk sharing, everyone could get full insurance cover very affordably if a system for it were put in place. The larger question is how efficient would the govt prove to be at managing such a fund if established, and how logistically the collection of the fees would be managed in cases of visa exempt entry.

Real tourists who intend to stay here for up to 2-3 months should not be allowed to travel without an insurance .

A simple check could be done at the airport , no insurance and you're not allowed to enter the plane.

For the rest of us living here without insurance, stupidity comes first in my mind.

You say that but my reserve fund is almost 5 million baht currently and it's off my spending radar, a combination of avoided premiums and investment returns, I can get a lot of sick treated for 5 mill.!

Indeed you can, even the worst case scenario will not exceed this in cost. But once it has been spent, it is gone. Can you replenish this, or do you have another fall back plan after that emergency fund is exhausted?

... Researched possible cover & all refused to insure after 65.

Plus, if had any prior serious illness, i.e. heart, cancer, irrespective of time or no ongoing problem, you won't be covered for any illness slightly related to the original illness...

You did not research very thoroughly, or perhaps limited yourself to Thai companies. A number of international companies will insure well past 65, some even at age 100.

Statement about pre-existing is also not true of all companies. Many will cover in full if the condition has been stable for several years. others will insure for just "acute exacerbations" of pre-exisitng conditions. And often exclusions will be dropped if no related claims in the first few years.

As for what is considered related to a pre-existing condition, that varies with the underwriter and company. In my experience European based insurers are quite reasonable. Someone with simple hypertension, for example, will not have heart conditions or stroke excluded, and even direct complications of the hypertension will not be excluded if it has well controlled for say 2 years prior to getting the policy. But it does depend on the company.

The services of a broker in navigating all this are very helpful.

How many times has this old chestnut been roasted? Getting medical insurance is perfectly possible (ask Sheryl) even for 90-year-olds - see threads I referenced above.

www.CignaGlobal.com

Charging 30/40/50 baht per head at the airport is ridiculous since some people only stay a week and others 3 months or a lot more. Asking already hard-pressed immigration offices to check incomers medical insurance is equally ridiculous. Check against what database, format, standards? It is actually CHEAPER for Thailand to pay the bill in the cases where the farang can't/won't pay,,,,,

I have just got an online quote from Cigna.

Their cheapest rate plan, Silver, comes to £341.01 per month or a little over 17,000 thb per month or 204.606 thb per year using 50thb/£1 as an exchange rate.

The Gold plan is £426,27 or 21,310 thb per month and 255,760 thb per year.

The Platinum plan is £532.83 or 26,640 thb pcm and 319,700 thb per year.

Dunno what happened to you -- I'm 69 and my quote was...

1 monthly payment of £ 95.48 then 11 monthly payments of £ 95.51 inc tax

I was quoted triple that, and I am 55.

Also, within 5 minutes of receiving the quote, a knob was on the phone from the UK trying to sell me the policy.

I told him I was not interested and hung up on him.

Your quote must have been for both inpatient and outpatient, and without deductible. It is necessary to look carefully at the myriad of options. Even the Thai-based insurance plans are quite expensive if including outpatient.

Try it again selecting inpatient only, a deductible of $750-$1000 per year and copay of 20% up to a maximum out of pocket (deductible + copay) per year of $5,000. The rate will be vastly different. This does not, by the way, mean that you have to pay $5,000 yourself before insurance pays anything. You have to pay only $750 before the insurance kicks in. Then you pay just 20% of total but not in excess of $4,250 that calendar year. Examples:

1. Total cost $3,000 (105,000 baht, typical of an uncomplicated routine hospitalization in a private hospital or more extensive -- but not catastrophic - stay and surgery at a government hospital): you pay $750 plus 20% of $2,250 = $450, for total out of pocket $1,200; the insurance pays the other $1,800. And the $1,200 you paid counts towards your out of pocket costs for anything else in that same calendar year, i.e. if you have another hospitalization no need for the $750 deductible and your future copays in that year cannot exceed $3,800 since annual out of pocket expense is limited to no more than $5,000.

2. Total cost $10,000 (350,000 baht, typical of major but uncomplicated surgery at a private hospital or more extensive/complicated care at a government hospital): you pay $750 plus 20% of $9,250 = 1,850 = total $2,600 and the insurance pays the other $8,150.

3. Total cost $60,000 (2.1 million baht, typical of highly specialized surgery with ICU stay at a private hospital, or multiple specialized surgeries and long ICU stay at a government hospital). You pay the $5,000 maximum and the insurance pays the other $55,000, and will pay 100% of any additional inpatient costs that occur in that same calendar year.

The premium for something like this in a person over age 55 will be around $2,000-$3,000 per year.

You can make similar online calculations for the many other companies based in Europe offering expat health policies, though AFAIK CIGNA is the least costly one that has a high age of enrolment and worldwide cover.

Just input a string of 9's or 1's for phone number, that will prevent the annoying sales calls.

Not always. Depends on the Thai and also often on their level of inebriation.

In this instance the Thais initiated the confrontation for no fault of the farang. His mistake was to react in a way that exacerbated it.

In my years here I have certainly had a few instances where nothing I could do would stop a Thai hell bent on a confrontation with me. The most I could do was avoid fanning the flames further.

Solution, all foreigners to have mandatory comprehensive insurance. If not, no visa to enter Thailand. The problem can be solved very quickly

This can work for people with visas, since proof of insurance can be reviewed at the time of visa issuance or extension.

But a large proportion of tourists enter visa exempt, and many of the spectacular multi-million baht unpaid bills fiascos involve such tourists.

I can't see how it would be feasible, without greatly adding to bottlenecks at immigration checkpoints, to screen for proof of insurance among those entering visa exempt.

I suppose they could require payment at the point of entry (with machine kiosks similar to what they used to have for airport tax) and then counters for people who want an exemption based on proof of insurance. (The savings will cost them in time, though..kind of like the VAT refunds)

BTW the amounts that have been bandied about as a tourist insurance fee fare nothing like 20 baht. More like 500 baht. Hopefully that would include not only medical care but also medical evacuation/repatriation.

The other problem to consider is among long-term expat residents here who do not have insurance and either cannot afford private premiums or have pre-existing conditions such that any policy they could get would exclude the major illness they are most likely to subsequently get. If a mandatory insurance became a requirement for visa extensions and was not matched with an option for paying into either the "30 baht" or SS schemes, chaos would result with potential for creating family separations etc. The SS scheme, since it is already contribution based, would be the most logical one to utilize and should be feasible to set this up, though there needs to be some actuarial work done first to calculate what the contribution cost should be.

No, not available here and do not do as much as you may think anyway. These test for only the following:

nitrates (useful indeed for checking for bladder infections, but not something one needs to do unless there are urinary symptoms or fever)

specific gravity - mainly just tells you if dehydrated which you can already assess just from urine amount and color

protein - is abnormal if present and may indicate a certain type of kidney disease but there are other kidney diseases in which there will not be protein. Not a substitute for blood test of kidney function (creatnine)

blood - presence in urine can mean many things, some of them benign (e.g. recent sexual activity, menstruation). Not always present in kidney disease, see above.

urobilinogen - presence may indicate a gall bladder or liver problem but it will be there only once serum bilirubin levels hit a certain point, serum bilirubin (blood test) is an earlies/ more sensitive indicator. Will only have elevated bilirubin in some types of liver/gall bladder problems (obstructive jaundice), not all. Not a subsitute for blood tests of liver vfunction (AST/ALT)

None of these things relate to the heart.

In short, this test would miss far more problems than it could possibly detect and might create a dangerous sense of false confidence.

A basic health screening with blood tests of kidney and liver function, anemia, urinalysis, and screening for diabetes and dyslipidemias can be had easily in Thailand for as little as 2,000 baht and is a much better idea.

Most of these hospitals are grossly expensive as all of them love to overcharge.

Not the public hospitals - which is what the article is about.

Their charges are quite reasonable.

Private hospital charges are another matter -- partly due to greed but also due to the need to recoup losses from patients who don't pay. Unlike the public hospitals, which just sustain a loss and run at a deficit (leading to less money for equipment purchase, building repairs and other necessities and lowering the quality of care for all), private hospitals can simply "cost shift" and raid their rates for all patients. So in effect all who use private hospitals are subsidizing those who do not pay.

This is huge problem for the public hospitals and I know from my time on the heath forum that there are many expats with both deeply ingrained unwillingness to pay for insurance and extremely unrealistic beliefs about the cost of health care and/or their personal susceptibility to illness and accidents.

I am sure this will end with a requirement for health insurance for visa extensions. I just hope that in tandem with that, resident expats are given an option for paying into one of the government helath schemes so that there are options for thsoe who can't afford private premiums or have significant pre-existing conditions.

I am less clear on how they can do this with tourist given the sheer logistics of checking for proof of insurance at immigration checkpoints -would be a nightmare and add to delays in processing considerably. I suppose they might just make everyone on a tourist visa or visa-exempt entry pay a flat amount for insurance, but that means that people who do have insurance will unfairly have to pay as well...

High frequency ultrasound treatment for prostate cancer is limited to localized, low risk cancers.

From the info provided by the OP, the cancer is no longer localized and is aggressive. So this is not an option in his case.

I appreciate the concerns various posters have voiced re nerve damage, sexual function etc but the OP is facing a serious threat to his life. Prostate cancers vary greatly and some are highly aggressive.

Dental Hospital Suk Soi 49 sells a wide range of products. Not sure exactly these (and if so, morel likely plastic than stainless steel) but worth checking. I was there 2 days ago and they had a stand set up in the lobby, but usually these things are at the pharmacy window,

Ah yes, of course, being across from the hospital there will be plenty of places with food there.

Sounds like a really good choice for people without a car.

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