how to lodge a complaint with hospital (Siriroj, Phuket)

[andreww]

Folks, 

Lately we've had a number of negative (and pricey) encounters with Siriroj Hospital (Phuket, part of Bangkok Hospital group), and I would like to lodge a formal complaint about their services, but not sure where to start.

 

Long story short:

- My wife had a 2wks chemical pregnancy (very early pregnancy loss that occurs shortly after implantation)

- Next time she got pregnant, OB in Siriroj prescribed her progesterone hormone (which is no longer recommended practice in the West)

- This prescription (in my opinion) caused my wife's gastritis to come back, so she was hospitalised ($500/day for the room & service), but all the treatment was just bland food, a bit of medicine + saline.

- Following this hospitalisation, progesterone was switched from pill to weekly injection form. 

- Eventually my wife miscarried at about 8 weeks, followed by another gastritis episode (and hospitalisation)

 

Needless to say, despite diagnosed gastritis, there was no assistance from hospital to control the condition, i.e. no advice how to deal with it during pregnancy, what to eat / avoid etc., we had to google everything (and this is how I figured out that progesterone was rather not necessary and could've been cause for gastritis return, and medical overload could had caused miscarriage). 

 

This would be my major complaint.

 

Another smaller one is related to their crazy overpriced services: for $500 / day stay there was no any significant treatment or test included, basically it's an overpriced hotel with shitty food and temperature checks every hour. And since we were in/out of hospital for 2 month, I had my foot bandaged at Siriroj while waiting for my wife (had a little skateboarding accident), 30 minute waiting in the line + 5 minute dressing procedure cost me $100. Needless to say, we will never put our foot in Siriroj ever again, but this dramatic shift in pricing and slide in service quality really concerned me (everything was more professional and cheaper before they were acquired by BHG). 

 

As a side story, a visiting friend of mine had his son's appendix removed there, for 300-400k THB. His Australian travel insurer was rather surprised and almost refused to pay, until hospital backed on their invoice a little bit. 

 

I hate to see this US-style healthcare becoming new normal in Thailand, hence I would like to raise my concerns with management of the hospital, hoping they would address this negative tendency.

 

Where to start this process? Any advice or shared experience is appreciated.

Edited February 8, 2019 by andreww

[lopburi3]

10 minutes ago, andreww said:

but all the treatment was just bland food, a bit of medicine + saline.

A bit of medicine can vary greatly in price - my wife just had a single outpatient injection (Prolia) at cost of 16,000 baht last week at a hospital here in Bangkok.  All hospitals can provide a detailed receipt on request giving specific costs of everything rather than that $500 per day figure.  Probably best to obtain such receipts first and review them yourself.    

[Sheryl]

The change in practice re progesterone is very recent (2016) so not surprising that doctor still used it, could happen in the west as well. It takes time for new findings to translate into practice. The use of progesterone in pregnancy is not harmful, we just niow know that it doesn't significantly improve pregnancy.

 

Progesterone can cause reflux but not AFAIK gastritis.  Where are you reading otherwise?

 

So basically your complaints boil down to the prices and that her doctor was not up to date on very newest research findings and gave a drug which used to be standard treatment and as of 2 years ago is not, but which caused no harm.

 

You are frankly not going to get anywhere with that. High prices in Thai private hospitals has been going on for quite some time, the hospitals' attitudes are  if you don't like the prices go elsewhere.

 

If there was some real malpractice here then I'd tell you to talk to the hospital administrator but this is not worth doing that over. No harm resulted and still using a protocol that was standard up until 2016 (and is nto associated with any harmful effects) is not egregious.

 

Lack of patient counselling on diet and self care is very, very common here. You will in most cases not find better no matter where in Thailand you go.

 

This isn't a "new normal" this is how things have been in private Thai health care for decades, though prices have gone up steadily as time  passed.

 

the government is aware if issues about prices in private hospitals and periodically claims it will do something but to date that has just been talk.