skildpadden

The price of medicine is not the whole issue here, it is also room, doctor's fees, nursing, laboratory and imaging, etc. etc. As for medicine prices, please bear in mind the huge import taxes on medicine - chemotherapy medicine is a good examle - so a high price is not always due to the private hospitals' charges.

Question is, if your relative needs a percutaneous coronary intervention, would you send them to a private or public hospital? The problem is that there can be long waiting at the public hospital whereas at the private hospital there is basically no waiting, the equipment at the public hospitals is in many places not very advanced, so diagnostics in e.g. cardiology is difficult. At the private you have all the specialist teams standing ready, which is likely not the case at the public hospital.

Could it be better in the public system? Sure, but that means everybody needs to start paying their taxes to fund and develop the system, but the latest big outcry on a proposed land tax, does not indicate that there will be any added funds to the public hopsital system anytime soon. Perhaps introduction of something similiar to the Affordable Care Act & Medicare would provide more Thais with access to prime medical facilities?

It is interesting how local these sudden weather incidents are - in Silom apparently complete rain chaos and on Petchaburi nothing but a bit of thunder.

"They recently petitioned the temple to remove the phallus, saying it was an eye sore and that it was the object for animistic worship and not compatible with Buddhism."

They said while visiting the fortuneteller, getting a magic tattoo and looking for lottery numbers in odd places,

"At 3am, Thalang poilice were called to the scene of an accident....."

"Upon arrival, police and rescue workers found......."

What that is actually news worthy - as news articles usually states dramatically that Police Colonel Somchai (or someone else) rushed to the scene of the accident.

This time it appears the police casually went there.

Funny enough I have a feeling that there is more to this story than what is told.

It could of course be a straightforward case of an a-hole husband who kills in jealousy, but given her position and the attempt to frame Somyot by leaving the businesscard just adds on to the story. The Thai newspapers are asking questions to Somyot on this story, so even they are not wagging their tails and accepting the whole story.

"The department will seek the hospitals' cooperation to ensure their ad campaigns comply with Thai law and ask for patient lists so that it can identify their customers."

Do they even have a right to that information - I thought there was a thing called patient confidentiality?

You can make all the laws and crackdowns you want, but if it is not enforced it is utterly useless and a waste of everybody's time.

Does anyone know if this law in France that equals Article 44 has since been removed from the French legal framewrok?

These "whitening" products are really unhealthy to your skin - I tried it once and got a bad skin rash. This whitening obsession is completely insane and trying to find a non-whitening product for men in your local Big C is nearly impossible.

So people will in general rather kill their family member (62,2 % of the cases) than "just" hit them (12,23% of the cases). Scary.

NGO bigshots are some of the worst scum in SE Asia.

Sadly, I must agree with you. I have met representatives from several high profiled NGOs all around in this region, and a good number of them strike me as first and foremost interested in (or exploiting) their own privileged lifestyle than actually working to make a change in the country where they are deployed and hiding themselves behind diplomatic passports and their compounds.

Of course there are also honest people who try to put the mission before themselves - but most of those, I have met, tend to be locally hired staff who do not receive the benefits that the international staff does.

I know it is not nice, and I promise to be ashamed (later), but looking at the people in the picture and reading this story just Monday morning a bit more fun. Two policemen (I guess) who are a bit confused of the situation whether they should look serious or just laugh out loud, a German with zero sense of situation and those two "girls" looks annoyed over the meager result of their theft.

Considering the time of the day, there is a huge risk that e.g. kids have seen this traumatizing event.

RIP to the guy, but why didn't he just popped pills and alcohol in the hotel room.

Just to get things in perspective I got a quote from insureandgo.com. I got quotes ranging from 137 - 247 Dollars (I assume AUD) for a 71 year old person travelling a month to Thailand (cover for Asia). So that is around 6.300 THB for the most expensive cover.
Travelinsurancedirect quoted me 300 AUD for the same trip which is 7650 THB.

Both apparently had no trouble insuring a person aged 71, so insurance is definitely available if you are a traveller.

But it is a totally different picture if you live here. A lot of local Thai insurances will not cover you after 65 - so you will need to get the "expat" like products, which could be pricy.

I agree completely.Barring women from seeking their sprirtual path within Buddhism and being ordained nuns does not fit with the original teachings. I fear that the Sangha Council has turned political instead of preserving the Buddha’s original teachings and providing spiritual support for the Buddhist lay-community.

A guy with good intentions gets my support. Hopefully he will be able to make a positive difference for some of the kids

That being said, such help is much more needed in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar than in Thailand. In those countries you will see real dispair among the kids with no real future in sight. Even though Thailand is far from taking good care of its poorest citizens, there is at least better access to e.g. healthcare and schooling than in the neighbouring countries.

Asked whether tax collection has fallen short of target, the prime minister retorted that the collection has fallen short because there were many people who have evaded paying taxes.

Yes there is the problem in a nutshell - and will it be any different with a property tax?

Good for them. I hope they will be happy together. It mentions she is a national athlete - anybody knows which sport?

Hopefully it will be a stepping stone for all couples who wish to legalize their marriage and be recognized by the state.