Let me start by saying that this does not apply to all staff. Most are very nice. I visit said hospital about every two months for refills on high blood pressure medication.
About six months ago, when I was going to register, I was waiting in line. When it was my turn, the registrar looked up at me, pointed, and said, "Go and stand last in line". There were 8 to 10 Thais behind me. He refused to register me unless I waited until the Thais were registered.
On November 14, it was again time to refill medicine. This is not a complicated procedure, the effective time from when I register until I receive and pay for the medicine is about 10 minutes, of which two to three are at the doctor's (the doctor asks how I feel and then signs the prescription).
This time the registration and the nurse's questions went quickly. As usual, I was referred to "station 4", where I assume that what the nurse at the previous station wrote down on the registration is transferred to a database. I left my document in a basket in front of the two nurses and one of them picked it up. Wait she said, and I waited for five hours to be exact. In the meantime, they let about 50 people who had come after me, in to the doctor. I approached the nurse and asked what was going on, sit down and wait a moment she said. I waited another half hour, then I went to the other nurse and said, give me my document.
In front of her was a stack of about 10 documents for the next round to be admitted to the doctor, but mine wasn't there. She knew, however, without asking me for my name, immediately where it was. It was alone about a meter from the pile where it should have been several hours earlier. I took the document and went out with the words. There are more and better hospitals in the city.
It cannot be blamed on unfortunate circumstances. In both cases, everyone involved knew very well what they were doing. Many, both foreigners and Thais, that I have spoken to about these events say that they have similar experiences from the same hospital.
60 years ago, Pattaya was an insignificant fishing village, now, thanks to tourism, it is a big city. Before the pandemic, tourism accounted for more than 21% of Thailand's GDP and it still accounts for a high proportion of Thailand's income, not least thanks to the foreigners who are permanent residents here. Unfortunately, some of the staff and management of the said hospital don't seem to understand that without us, Pattaya would degenerate back into a fishing village, because just like there are other hospitals in Pattaya, there are other places that can offer the same thing as Pattaya, but with a friendly attitude ( I look forward to an explanation of the behavior from the hospital management).