richard_smith237

Agreed... thats also a possibility.... One thing which is somewhat odd in the story.... Since when does a ‘big boss’ get involved with a Dr’s diagnosis and prescription ??? It does seem very strange that a Dr would prescribe something only for the ‘Big Boss’ to say no... at which point in the proceedings was he consulted etc ?... Note: (as already pointed out) IF the mediation was Favipiravir is neither expensive or in short supply in Thailand, so the response is just strange.

IF we’re going to get into the nuts and bots of it, the policy still ‘could’ have been racist... ... Would a Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodian etc also be refused medication from the hospital in the same situation or was it as the op stated?... ‘She [the treating medical practitioner] then told me that her boss had told her that she could NOT dispense these drugs to Falangs regardless of their medical condition' Thus, what is meant by ‘Falang / Farang’ in this instance ??? white foreigners? ... or was the Dr simplifying the statement and instead of highlighting ’non-Thais’ used the work ‘farang’ (a world I very rarely here educated professionals use - perhaps the Dr’s handle of English was not as strong). .... OR... did the Dr. actually state ’non-Thai’s'.... and the the Op has since stated ‘Falang’....?? Where language is a barrier, there is plenty of scope for variance in the underlying wording, meaning and facts of the policy the hospital was operating under.

Agree with all the comments here... Well done to the young chap. I also strongly agree with the comments on here regarding training for all - this example should drive the message home to all authorities, schools and people in positions of decision making power that water safety and first aid skills are an essential facet of education and really need to be implemented in the curriculum across the nation.... .... not just Thailand, all countries.... And then... Add road safety and driver / rider education while they’re at it, electrical safety too... .... So many unnecessary deaths can be avoided with education alone.

...deliberately obtuse much ??? The Op explained the situation well enough to understand, the Dr. prescribed mediation that would help his condition. Life saving is of course an exaggeration, but antiviral medication has also saved lives during the Covid pandemic.

I agree with Neeranam.... even though I mentioned that the policy is racist and it certainly seems so... I'ts not racist, not in the true sense of the word as we witness it at is worst in other area’s of the world. Such policies are nationalist and perhaps border on xenophobia with understandable interpretations of undertones of racism. Why ??? and why does Neeranam know this ??.... Because he’s British (apologies Neeranam, Scottish), but he also holds dual nationality and is also Thai, the dual pricing or unequal treatment many of us witness and discuss does is not experienced by Neeranam because they are based upon nationality, he is a strong example of ‘racism’ not existing in Thailand in the context we discuss on this forum. My argument is that many of these policies being based on nationality alone are unfair and wrong, they are clumsy, insulting and not mirrored in our home nations which do have policies based on residency, but not nationality..... Thus, IF Thailand were to be considered moderate, fair and not be accused of bordering on xenophobia with understandable interpretations of undertones of racism where policies of differentiation exist, Thailand should either remove them completely or base them on residency and extricate itself to the the high-ground.

There were certain hospitals, including Bangkok Hospital that gave some of the vaccines to foreigners before Thais. I couldn't register, they asked for visa. I could initially get the Sinovac or Astra by showing Thai ID but I didn't want it. Ah.. that changes the landscape of your comment somewhat... I received Astra Zeneca... as did my Wife and Brother in Law. Mother and Father In Law received Sinovac (all within the same week)..... There really wasn’t any availability of anything else until much later. That's definitely unfair then.... extremely clumsy and wholly wrong to differentiate between anyone.

Trying to benefit from cheap, govt. subsidized medications meant for poor people. The local Pharmacy is always cheaper than the hospital Pharmacy and the Op was paying for his treatment and Medication. The op has quoted the cost of the paracetamol and Cough Medicine was B620..... Thus, Neeranam... you are distorting information - there was nothing subsidised about the Ops visit, unless of course you have information that the medication the Op needed which was rejected was subsidised.... ..... and, I could be wrong, but my guess is the Op was prescribed Favipiravir (antiviral) which is a very common medication, has been around for a long time and is very cheap. Neither is Favipiravir in short supply either.

A valid point.... The Op also states he was quite unwell.... I can’t compare covid because my case was extremely mild. Years ago I had a case of influenza and I couldn’t make it out of bed.... So, if the Op felt anything like that, getting to a hospital in the first place just a lot of horrible effort.... then to be sent elsewhere for medication for such a spurious and unfair reason seems just wrong.... ...I think anyone would be justifiably annoyed at this.

No. I fail to see why their nationality is relevant to my NOT getting a vaccine, as a Thai citizen before, or even at the same time as foreigners. Agreed.... The nationality of Neeranams parents is irrelevant. In this case the nationality Neeranam and the Op is irrelevant, or rather it should have been irrelevant. The Op was treated at hospital and refused medication because of his nationality - this is very wrong.

I too was vaccinated early on, a few days before my Wife and Mother and Father in Law. No one checked my Visa at all.... (I used the info on the front and back of my Pink ID to register). You could have registered with your Thai ID... OR are you suggesting that in Khon Kaen non-Thai’s were receiving their vaccinations before Thai’s ???? - IF so, thats the first I’ve heard of it. You're reaching and projecting to exaggerated behaviour to justify poor treatment of someone in medical need. From the Op we do know he was refused medication he needed - that is wrong. (and yes, it appears he did need it because he was given a prescription to go elsewhere and get it).

A strong argument, but a strawman fallacy nonetheless, for this is not what is happening here or in the UK.... The hospitals in Thailand are not and have not been over-run with expats seeking medical care. Non-Thai’s are not a burden on the Thai Economy or healthcare systems by any stretch of the imagination. Pre-Covid: Medical Tourism generated US$140 billion. In 2019 foreign tourists failed to pay US$ 300 million in bills. In 2018 there were 39.8 million foreign tourists.... >>> thats 7.5 Baht per tourist burden.... (in 2019). The argument, while emotive and used by Thailand politicians just doesn’t hold any mathematical strength whatsoever.... And I’d be racist in doing so... Particularly to the ones who’d lived there, paid tax and contributed to the local economy etc... I’d be embarrassed to paint all with the same brush.... That said, I do understand your point it perhaps rings a ’them and us’ bell in all of us, perhaps an instinct from ’neanderthal times’ when protecting ourselves from other packs of hunter gatherers... we’ve moved on... but some underlying attitudes seem not to have.

The issue was not providing him ‘reduced priced medication’ it was not providing him medication at all while he was quite unwell and in a high-risk group. The Op was paying for treatment, he would have paid for medication - that is the norm in Thai hospitals. The Op did pay for medication and it doesn’t seem ‘very reduced at all’... (B620 for paracetamol and cough medicine)... The Op was refused other medication not because it was reduced priced - but because he was not Thai and someone somewhere made a decision that the lives and well-being of Thai’s are more important than the lives of non-Thai’s..... it is this facet of the issue which is wholly wrong.

If this is your argument as to why the Op was refused medication you’re not only going off on a tangent, but you are getting desperate to explain and justify something which is wholly wrong.

I understand but would you like Thailand to be like the UK and let immigrants from all over to come and get equal treatment? Foreigners, especially over 60 are a huge burden on the Thai health system, one reason they ask for insurance now. Going to the cheap hospitals does work out sometimes but you can't rely on them. Calling them racist when they can't help is very inappropriate, after all they do for farang who can't afford private. Its a delicate issue, but not one you are presenting from a balanced view point. The UK does welcome plenty of immigrations from all over the world and plenty from commonwealth nations. The UK would also welcome my Wife, under specific financial conditions (NHS surcharge fee etc). You have also distorted the issue - the Ops money paid for treatment, that treatment was not subsidised in any way.. The Op was no such burden on the medical care Thailand provides - he was a ‘paying patient’. The Op also has insurance for in-patient care. The Op was refused medication based on nationality - that is wholly wrong, particularly given the circumstances as he explains it. In any society it should be considered the patients health is primary - in this case it wasn’t even money primary care playing second fiddle to money, it was something else, a policy or an opinion by a hospital ‘higher-up’..... He needs to be dragged over the coals for such decisions IMO.

There was clearly enough - it was in the pharmacy down the road - it seems there was a policy in place not to provide ’specific’ medication to non-Thai’s.... ... somewhat disgusting in light of the ‘international medical aid’ and donations of vaccines Thailand received through the Covid crisis. Would you be happy IF your wife (if Thai) went to the UK and she were refused medication because she is not British ???.... .... Just imagine the fall out from that ??? You don’t see anything wrong with this because you are perhaps trying so very hard to see things in a favourable light from Thailands perspective... trying to find some excuse or reason for such behaviour from a hospital.... .... The reality is, in any country in the world, this behaviour is completely un acceptable. Its unacceptable to me where I come from. It should be unacceptable to anyone who lives here in Thailand. It should be unacceptable to any Thai that non-Thais are treated in such a manner. It should be unaccepted to any official that it allows such treatment of non-Thai’s. It’s certainly unacceptable to me that Thailand, a country I care about can treat people so poorly. A country that could be so much better let's itself down when behaviour like this is considered acceptable.

You’ve used this poorly thought out argument before (and similar ones). The answer is NO.... because he was likely a local resident... Had a Thai been a local resident he would receive a similar price than the Australian. An out of province Australian would also likely pay more than a local resident Thai.

Clearly it is based on his nationality that he isn’t Thai, so you are correct - the treatment was not ‘racist’.... but to deny someone quite unwell medication based on nationality is outrageous. There really isn’t any moral high ground from which to defend this. I suggest you look up the words ‘human decency’ the Op was unwell and is in a high-risk group. For someone unwell, timing is even more important, particularly when it comes to receiving medical treatment.... your defence of the issue fails to understand this important point. Any extra time and effort spent when unwell is not something anyone wants to ensure, particularly when it's unnecessary. The Op is quite right in his frustration - had he known that that specific hospital would not provide medication to a non-Thai he could easily have used his time more effectively and sought medical treatment at a facility that doesn’t treat non-Thai’s as second class citizens. ----------- It would never enter my mind that my Wife be treated any differently than I in a hospital in the UK. And yes, she has insurance which may likely have to pay for treatment, but to be refused medication on grounds of nationality alone would be considered outrageous and potentially illegal.

Foreigners should have health insurance. No, not racist at all. If a farang Thai was refused, then it would be racist. The decision seems based on him being solely non-Thai and while he was quite unwell seems wholly wrong, particularly in light of the Op being an ‘at risk patient’. The Op could have paid for the medicine, which is the case in anyway. The issue isn’t that they hospital wanted to charge the Op for medication - it was they said he ‘couldn’t have any’.... While not ‘blatant racism’ as we have seen in the past elsewhere, IMO this definitely falls on the ’scale’ of receiving unequal and unfair treatment based on not being Thai... ... perhaps not racist, most definitely nationalist then, but the same ‘undertones’ surface with such treatment. The one saving grace of the hospital is that they provided him with the name of a pharmacy where he could get mediation from..... (if they had it available). The situation is as wrong as it is bizarre and really should not happen.

Its a definition of racism IMO.....

So soon....

I opened the Op because I thought I could help... I checked the rates of a place I know of, but they fell outside of his price bracket...(double - I thought the rates may be cheaper post Covid). Then I saw your response.... “I know a place but I’m in a particularly facetious mood and want to tell you that you, a perfect stranger, I don’t want to tell you” !!!! (yes, paraphrase). So.. I didn’t respond to the Op because I can’t help him... ..... but I saw your special example of flookwittery and figured no one posts something this ayholish without expecting a response.... I’m happy to oblige !!!

Thailand is one of the very few countries which does allow this..... Pay for a Thai Elite Visa... you can stay for 20 years !!..... (or if you joined early enough, the rest of your life)..... It's not an investment... its a payment (Thai Elite) 600,000 for 5 years.... and upwards to 2 million baht for 20 years with perks. If someone is ‘wealthy enough to do what they want’.... and they want to stay in Thailand, this is not an issue If they can’t pay that, they are clearly not wealthy enough to do what they want and are therefore likely to be looking to source income through other means... balance of probability, they are going to live and work here illegally.

Ask your staff to stay at home - test with an ATK in 5 days, come back to work when negative. If they can do some work from home (depending of their symptoms). Test all other staff. If clear, continue as normal. There is a moral responsibility to tell customers IF you can reach them. However, I would be hesitant, that people could ‘blame’ you and your company when they could have also caught Covid-19 elsewhere - would they want to hold you accountable for them losing work etc ? I’d avoid that risk. Much of this also depends what ‘customers’ you have and what your place of business is and the level of contact. I don’t Imagine Big C contacts all of (or even any, or one) of the customers if a security guard, a checkout staff or shelf-stacker caught covid. I don’t even Imagine an Airline wold contact all passengers if one of their Flight Attendants tested positive after a flight. I don’t expect a hotel would tell its residents if one of its front staff had tested positive for Covid-19. So... social or moral responsibility... its of course exists... but how difficult would it be to ’tell customers’ depends on the business and level of potential exposure... ... ....personally, I’d be treating Influenza more seriously than Covid now as we’ve gone a few years without the the exposure to the ongoing antigenic drift of influenza and the next influenza outbreak could kick our backsides....

So your only aim when replying to this thread was to tell the Op you have some information which could help him, but, you don’t want to give out the information... Given your comments it would present a ‘win-win’ to provide us with the hotel info so we all know to avoid it and not run the risk of potentially running into you !!!!

Op asked for local information on any gems... not a lesson on how to use Agoda !!!..... So... Do you know something ???? - why not just tell him which what you found that fits his requirement ?