Government hospitals, having to wait

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

Agree, in fact in my post #64, a smaller point, the doctor had prescribed 2 stronger pain killers plus 30 Tolenol tabs (3 times per day for 30 days). 

 

The lady patient I spoke of mentioned this to the senior hospital manager who had come into the discussion, mentioning:

 

- The doctor asked me 'do you have any pain'.

- Patients answer 'none at all'

 

Nevertheless the doctor prescribed 3 pain killers, plus 4 other medications.

 

 

My error, and correction - 30 Tonenol tabs (3 tabs per day for 10 days).

[elgenon]

On 3/22/2019 at 7:30 PM, lopburi3 said:

Was it infected?  Is so that needs to be treated first to allow numbing to take place - otherwise injections are just held in the infection area and do not numb (been there).  

Not infected, the dentist put me out and I woke up with blood splattered on my bib and clothes. Must have been a world-class struggle. Glad I didn't see it or feel it.

 

Sorry to hear you had an additional problem. But we're alive and well. Eh?

[elgenon]

On 3/22/2019 at 8:32 PM, scorecard said:

Yes sir, in Bangkok.  I gave 2 examples, if you wanted to search newspaper archives over many years you will find many more.

 

A different example in Chiang Mai at a so called 5 star, Thai customer indicated quickly to the cashier that she would buy the medicines outside. The patient is a respected Thai professional woman, speaks perfect English, always very polite but she's nobodys' fool and she stands her ground and she knows who to contact at high levels if needed,

 

Cashier instantly said 'this hospital doesn't allow that'.

 

Patient 'Your hospital have to allow it, it's the law of Thailand which applies to all hospitals'.

 

Cashier talks to someone and then says 'You have to apply in writing 7 days in advance to have that service' Patient says 'not true' it cannot be like that, not logical'  and she calls someone, a couple of minutes later a senior person from the health ministry calls back, asks for details, and confirms all hospitals must allow the patient to buy the medicines anywhere'.

 

More senior admin' person from the hospital now tells the health ministry lady 'but we have our own rules on that subject and we don't allow it and by the way the patient didn't ask for permission from the doctor involved in the consultation to buy the medicine outside'.

 

Patient has already insisted that the admin. lady put her phone on speaker phone, Health ministry lady says very clearly to the admin. lady 'Your not listening, you cannot make your own rules on this, your hospital must obey the law'. She then says to the patient' please take a smartphone photo of all the people from the hospital and all the documents, in a few minutes I will send you my e.mail address, and please don't leave the hospital.

 

A few minutes later a director of the hospital arrives quickly on the scene full of apologies and tells the patent 'of course you can buy outside and I will tell my driver to personally take you to an outside pharmacy to buy your tablets'.

 

Patient by this stage pretty pissed off and she speaks to the many other people waiting to pay their bills 'The hospital has a free car service to take everybody to a local pharmacy....'

 

Director now put on the spot ushers the patient away and tells her that her bill is all cancelled, and quickly assigns a junior admin. clerk to take the lady to her car and help her to get out of the carpark. Running two steps behind is another junior with a bag of scripted medicines free.

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Well government hospitals are government hospitals and I can guess which CM hospital your referring to and yes it's way too big and efficiency suffers.

 

However there are many government hospitals in Thailand where things are much better organized and in any many cases easy enough to find good English.

So how does a visiting farang get prescriptions to fill outside of the hospital?

[lopburi3]

4 minutes ago, elgenon said:

So how does a visiting farang get prescriptions to fill outside of the hospital?

Most drugs do not require prescriptions - you just buy the named medications outside hospital.  The easy way is to work with your doctor as most are fully willing to do as you ask and avoid paying hospital markups if that is your desire.  If issues with doctor you can always say you have medications when checking your detailed receipt (copy names or photograph what you will need).

[KarlS]

My wife was admitted to the local public hospital in an emergency- She was accommodated in a spacious 4 bedded room with comfortable beds etc. My offer of securing a private room for her was refused.

Her 6-day stay including emergency surgery, blood transfusion, medication etc cost 30Bht.

I made a donation to the hospital's funds. 

[Sheryl]

This is because she is a Thai citizen coveted under the univetdal health scheme.

Foreigners are not coveted and must pay full fee. Which will be anywhere from 1/2 to 1/5 the cost of a private hospital but can still amount to serious money if ICU care and/or specialized surgeries are involved.

Sent from my SM-J701F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[elgenon]

28 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Most drugs do not require prescriptions - you just buy the named medications outside hospital.  The easy way is to work with your doctor as most are fully willing to do as you ask and avoid paying hospital markups if that is your desire.  If issues with doctor you can always say you have medications when checking your detailed receipt (copy names or photograph what you will need).

Do you get the receipt before you pay? It seems if you check the receipt you have already paid for the meds. Or am I misunderstanding you?

[KarlS]

2 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Do you get the receipt before you pay? It seems if you check the receipt you have already paid for the meds. Or am I misunderstanding you?

A bill is presented before payment is made -- easy to have that bill amended in respect of unwanted medication(s) 

[elgenon]

3 minutes ago, KarlS said:

A bill is presented before payment is made -- easy to have that bill amended in respect of unwanted medication(s) 

Got it. Thanks

[scubascuba3]

Do you get the receipt before you pay? It seems if you check the receipt you have already paid for the meds. Or am I misunderstanding you?

They usually don't give you the breakdown of the medication until after you have paid, you have to ask for it pre payment so you can check.

 

In private hospitals they have bill padding going on, i didn't get that at Pattaya City Hospital

 

[lopburi3]

1 minute ago, scubascuba3 said:

13 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Do you get the receipt before you pay? It seems if you check the receipt you have already paid for the meds. Or am I misunderstanding you?

They usually don't give you the breakdown of the medication until after you have paid, you have to ask for it pre payment so you can check

Just ask to see detailed receipt at payment desk - that will list each medication and price and should not be any problem reviewing prior to payment.  Then you can point out the items not required.

[scubascuba3]

Just ask to see detailed receipt at payment desk - that will list each medication and price and should not be any problem reviewing prior to payment.  Then you can point out the items not required.

That's exactly what i do but the default of the hospitals I've been to is to not give to you in advance unless you ask. The reason, they know people will see the bill padding and ask for add ons to be removed

 

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, elgenon said:

So how does a visiting farang get prescriptions to fill outside of the hospital?

Tell the cashier that you will pay the fees but you will buy the medicines outside and insist on a list of whatever the doctor prescribed. And stick to your guns.

 

I did, it worked, but before I bought the medicines I removed several standard items for the list that most people already have at home for a simple headache etc.

 

[elgenon]

On 3/24/2019 at 8:49 PM, lopburi3 said:

Just ask to see detailed receipt at payment desk - that will list each medication and price and should not be any problem reviewing prior to payment.  Then you can point out the items not required.

Thanks

[elgenon]

On 3/24/2019 at 9:57 PM, scorecard said:

Tell the cashier that you will pay the fees but you will buy the medicines outside and insist on a list of whatever the doctor prescribed. And stick to your guns.

 

I did, it worked, but before I bought the medicines I removed several standard items for the list that most people already have at home for a simple headache etc.

 

Thanks

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, elgenon said:

Thanks

If at a private hospital and the cashier refused to give me a list of the medications suggested by the doctor I would say 'never mind, I'll go back to the doctor and ask him/her to write the medications on a slip of paper'. And walk away towards the lift or stairs or whatever. 

 

No need to be rude to or to feel intimidated in any way by the cashier or clerk or nurse. 

 

If they all totally refused I would head to the administration / general managers area to insist that the hospital follow the law which says, without any twists or turns that hospitals cannot insist that patients buy from the hospital.

 

If they say GM is at a meeting I say 'I'll wait', and I and my son did this one time. The staff overheard my Thai son calling his wife to bring a lot of food, coffee, water etc., to him, suddenly the wishy washy wimp GM (beautiful suit and necktie, shiny shoes, well groomed) was suddenly available and was incapable of any serious discussion except 'I'm sure it will be OK next time'.

 

My family has had too many negative experiences with private hospitals, we're never rude or abusive, but dig our heels in and demand explanations where needed and we insist that we will buy the medicines from outside and we don't back down. 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by scorecard

[elgenon]

On 3/26/2019 at 8:50 PM, scorecard said:

If at a private hospital and the cashier refused to give me a list of the medications suggested by the doctor I would say 'never mind, I'll go back to the doctor and ask him/her to write the medications on a slip of paper'. And walk away towards the lift or stairs or whatever. 

 

No need to be rude to or to feel intimidated in any way by the cashier or clerk or nurse. 

 

If they all totally refused I would head to the administration / general managers area to insist that the hospital follow the law which says, without any twists or turns that hospitals cannot insist that patients buy from the hospital.

 

If they say GM is at a meeting I say 'I'll wait', and I and my son did this one time. The staff overheard my Thai son calling his wife to bring a lot of food, coffee, water etc., to him, suddenly the wishy washy wimp GM (beautiful suit and necktie, shiny shoes, well groomed) was suddenly available and was incapable of any serious discussion except 'I'm sure it will be OK next time'.

 

My family has had too many negative experiences with private hospitals, we're never rude or abusive, but dig our heels in and demand explanations where needed and we insist that we will buy the medicines from outside and we don't back down. 

 

 

Thanks