Asking for a friend who's considering coming to Chiang Mai from the UK for heart bypass surgery (instead of waiting on the NHS). Is this a good place to come to have it done? Any recommendations for heart doctors and hospitals ? Or if you would like to share any experiences, please pm me, would really appreciate it - thanks ????

In all seriousness, tell your friend to radically change his lifestyle.  There has never been a case of blocked arteries due to broccoli and tofu and whole brown rice type of diets.  Get the video, Diet for a small planet or something like that.  Similar book also.  Statistics are overwhelmingly amazingly in favor of a much more vegetarian diet, proper oils such as Olive, etc.  Supplement with a little fish now and then for some protein.  Most people consume two to three times the amount of protein they actually need.  All that does, unless one is a body mass building bodybuilder is makes your kidneys work harder processing the extra protein.  I assure you if he radically changes things now, in one month he will notice the difference.  In 6 months he will be stunned at the results

While a healthy diet can certainly reduce the chances of developing this problem it cannot undo the blockage your friend already has.

 

To do this surgery in a government hospital will entail waits, possibly as long as he would have in the UK under NHS, and to do it privately will be expensive. Depending on whether done by stent or by vessel graft (open heart surgery) and also on the  number of vessels involved, looking at  somewhere in the range of 300-800,000 baht, the higher end being for multiple vessels. And this is assuming no complications. If complications can run into millions of baht.

 

If your friend is prepared to pay this he might want to first look at what it costs to do it privately in the UK, may not be much saving in coming here.

 

If he does want to proceed then in order to suggest a doctor I need to know clearly what has been recommended: is it stent placement or vessel graft (open heart surgery)? As different types of doctors for these 2 things. Normally open heart surgery would be advised only if multiple vessels are involved .