Expat Life And Death

[Davidcharles]

How are you today?

Fine, I woke up again, thousands didn't

I greet the Dawn.....I look around......and thank 'The Lord......

That I am six feet OVER GROUND!!!!

[Papatom]

At age 62 I could get an international long-term health insurance for a monthly fee of $125 that would pay for two years of care. For this to kick in I would have to have major disabilities - such as not being able to feed my self, need help taking a bath. You don't pay the monthly fee when you start receiving care under the plan. I could afford it. But my father, mother, and most relative generally got along until their eighties and then went quickly. So I don't think I want that for me. But there must be a large industry of long term health care plans to choose among.

Regarding Pattaya, I have read of some Pattaya hotels being designed and staffed to care for the elderly. That could be a better plan. I think most large Thai cities have the like facilities.

I will have a retirement pension. I believe will be a significant factor in others having an interest in extending my life in a comfortable manner.

[Rascal]

I was more interested in hearing about what people, especially those living alone, actually do. Do people prepare for this, or do they just "leave it for later"? I suppose that some people end up in miserable situations because of lack of planning or simply through bad luck. What happens to people who are not able to take care of themselves anymore, people who are in need of help, medical or otherwise. Do anyone care about and take care of those people?

Most of the retirees in this situation receive a pension or social security. They've lived here for many years so they have a good, strong network of friends who help them get things done and gather donations for hospital bills, medicine, etc. People here do care and they step up to help - if they know you and consider you a friend.

I'm not exactly sure if your wife is Thai or not, but if she is, you'll be in a more fortunate situation. Anyone here will tell you that the Thai 'extended' family is a very big one, and usually a neice, cousin, sister, etc. will come live in and help with caretaking. There's all this talk about back stabbing, Thai women stealing your money, etc. etc. on this site, but believe me, it's the same here as it is anywhere in the world. If you treat people in your life with decency and respect, I guarantee you that there will be someone to step forward and care for you when you need it. It mostly depends on where you go to try to find and make friends - something a lot of the old, bitter hands here can't seem to grasp. Many Thai people have a sense of 'Boon Kuhn', which means that they feel a sense of obligation to you for good that you have done for them.

Most retirees have a US bank account where their social security checks are directly deposited into, and they use an ATM card to withdraw those funds as needed. So in these cases, funds are available for their care every month. They hire a live in caretaker. That's not so hard to find. I don't know anybody here (elderly) who actually lives alone. You don't find that often at all. Almost all the people I know have a pension or social security, so I guess that's how they have 'planned' for their old age.

The ones that end up very miserable are generally the ones who don't have enough funds to pay for their care or the ones who become very suddenly incapacitated and haven't left instructions for their care. In cases like this, their embassy representative steps in. Some are sent back 'home' to their next of kin.

There is no government care here for people who can't afford it - especially for foreigners. There are government hospitals here that are quite inexpensive by comparison, but chances of survival in those is not so good. That is where many of the less fortunate foreigners are admitted when they are ill. It's very sad, but I guess it's the same in many countries around the world.

A little planning will go a long way. Hope this helps. Good luck.

[paulfr]

.....While we are on this cheerful subject check out how long you have left before you meet the grim reaper at http://www.deathclock.com/

I checked this for fun and found that it gave a different time of death

if I checked a 2nd time. Third and fourth times also gave different

dates of death differeing by 4 years, even though the data was unchanged.

Looks a little bit more like astrology than medical prognostication.

[paulsenp]

Thanks Rascal, for your interesting post.

Just to set things straight: I am 59, my thai wife (for 26 years now) is 61, and I expect that we will move to Thailand when I am 62. My wife has a big family, and we get along just fine with them all. We also have several good friends in Thailand. Our economy will allow us to live as we want (unless, of course, a global economic meltdown should occur). Although we will not be moving until about 3 years from now, I have, on a small scale, started making plans already.

So, I was not really asking, because I need ideas about how to handle my own situation. It is just, that I have heard so many horror stories, about the miserable situations some people end up in.

regards,

Peter

[kat]

What happens when people get too sick and/or senile to look after themselves?

Move to Pattaya.

Thats for sure,,everyone does it,,move,get an apt or high hotel room and then just fall out of the window.

Happens everyday.

Even though I've been here a while, sometimes I am overwhelmed by compulsive laughter on how sick and crazy life can be here sometimes.

And worse, the comment is so true!

[20yearsinthai]

I like the morphine solution

[Martin]

In the opening posting, paulsenp said "unlike the situation in most of the countries we leave behind us, we can't just go to an 'old peoples' home'.....", but the extended family is the traditional 'old peoples' home'.

The burgeoning of 'residential homes for the elderly' is only a recent phenomenon, and has only happened in those so-called "advanced " societies where the extended family has been largely wiped out by, first of all, youngsters chasing off after jobs far from their birthplaces, and then the consequent building of houses that were big enough for the next generation's nuclear families but not big enough to bring an old parent to.

There were other factors, too, such as social climbers not wanting to be embarrassed by being seen to be the offspring of people from a 'lower' social class.

My impression is that there were very few 'old peoples' homes' in UK back in the 1950s and before.

I remember in the 1970s many old people saying "Oh, I hope I'm not put in a Home".

I have a gut feeling (but no insight to Pattaya, so no evidence) that a lot of suicides may be the ending of the road for men who have run away from being 'put in a Home'. Personally, I empathise with them.

But what of the future?.

The 'self exporting' of pensioners from miserable, high-priced European countries to warmer, cheaper ones is an unstoppably-growing phenomenon.

As Spain and Portugal get filled up and no longer cheap, Thailand must be moving up the list of attractive retirement destinations.

My feeling is that it would already be well underway but for three factors. One is the long flight, the second is the strangeness of the language (particularly the difficulty in reading it, even on simple things like price tickets and public toilet signs), and the third is that holidaymakers here haven't seen how they could live here in retirement.

(Lucky are we who have a Thai wife and so were enabled to see how we could live here in retirement.)

I was interested to see in an earlier posting a reference to some hotels 'setting out their stalls' to look after retirees to the end.

If that caught on, it could open the floodgates.

After all, that is how retiring 'to a place in the sun' started in the Mediterranean. And, as soon as holidaymakers found some of their own nationals had retired to the holiday resort, the idea spread to the next generation like wildfire.

I wonder if there are yet any Western couples who have chosen to retire here?.

I would guess that Chiang Mai was/will be first choice.

Perhaps someone can tell us.

[simon43]

Jeez!! that deathclock is so depressing!!

[Darlek]

But surely you will be perched on a barstool in Soi Cowboy until you are 91 years of age.

maybe even get the queens letter for making 100 ....

a barstool in Soi Cowboy is better than a chair in an old folks home any day ...

all that young pussy will keep you firing up on all cylinders until the grim reaper calls

[xyz]

There's a book called "Final Exit" published by the Hemlock Society that spells out in detail a possible answer to your question.

[Martin]

...a barstool in Soi Cowboy is better than a chair in an old folks home any day...

...all that young pussy will keep you firing up on all cylinders until the grim reaper calls...

Brilliant, Darlek!!!

And succinctly brilliant. (And I envy that. I am congenitally incapable of being succinct, sorry chaps!; but I do appreciate it in others).

There will be those, and I am one, who would say:

"Good luck to you, but that's not my (nor my wife's!!) 'cup of tea'. I (or we) would seek something a bit different. But thanks for pointing out what I (or we) should be pushing ourselves a bit to find:

"Something better than a chair (or chairs) in an old folks home", and "what will keep me (or us) firing up on all cylinders until the grim reaper calls".

Yes, yes, yes, those are the goals".

The topic is about what arrangements we who are now in Thailand, or are shortly coming here,have made (or not made) to cover the possibility that there may be a last bit of waiting for the grim reaper (often, the welcome reaper) if the strength fails before he comes.

So I have put up a topic: Chair(s) in Old Folks' Homes.

That will let us widen out a bit.

It is in the General Topics section of the Forum.(Later, Sunday 25 July----well, it was there. But it seems to have now disappeared into cyberspace. I will repost it later today.)

[cobra]

Planning is the key, get something in place soon even if it's not completely desirable.

After a severe stroke you'll be out of the loop.

[craig]

Well this thread has pushed this topic into my brain again...I've thought about this a bit but have made no plans. I'm soon to be 59, overweight but in pretty good health with a small pension. My thoughts on the matter include living with my Thai wife or paying for a live in provider. As long as I am not in pain or am penniless I think this is what I hope for...I do plan on ending it if the worse comes along...I am going to set out some sort of plan along that line. I am going to have to research morphine idea...does anyone have any real information on this? If you are reluctant to share on this forum please mail me. My family in the USA will support and assist in any decision I decide on.

[Martin]

craig: your comment on the morphine idea reminds me of 1996, when my first wife died from cancer.

Clearing out the house when I came to sell it, I found that I had enough morphine to make the sinking of a battleship into a painless experience.

Thank goodness the local druggies didn't know it, or I would have been burgled for sure.

I shoved those (several) partly-empty bottles in a carrier bag with lots of other unused medicines and gave them in at the local pharmacy for disposal.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have stored those bottles in a safe, hidden place just in case I get to where life is too painful to tolerate living.

And then I wonder how many people have done just that.

It clearly isn't hard for patients to get more prescriptions than they really need during the early stages of a terminal illness.

[simon43]

My intended plan for old age goes like this:

> Stay in LoS

> Advice my Thai wife/GF that for every year that I continue to live, the amount of money paid out of my will to her will increase. So it is to her benefit to look after me and encourage me not to pop my clogs

> I have also advised her that gentle sex (no heart attacks..) is said to encourage longevity

[xyz]

Advice my Thai wife/GF that for every year that I continue to live, the amount of money paid out of my will to her will increase. So it is to her benefit to look after me and encourage me not to pop my clogs

Good idea. If I ever decide to shack-up w/ a Thai GF in my later years, I may actually follow through on it, however.

[Martin]

cobra said: "Planning is the key.......After a severe stroke you'll be out of the loop".

Yes, so give someone who you trust a Power Of Attorney.

If you don't know any individual(s) who would undertake to keep the money flowing from your pension-payer(s) to Thailand (by doing things like dealing with the annual form that the pension-payers require to see that you are still alive) then appoint a firm of lawyers.

It is a good idea to inform your pension-payers of your circumstances, especially if there is a lump sum payable on death.

It helps your representative if, when s/he contacts the pension-payer, someone who opens the file finds a letter from you and can say "Oh, yes, I see he wrote to us X years ago saying he now lived in Thailand, but XYZ can attend to his affairs, under Power of Attorney".

Also make sure your beneficiaries know how to get a Thai death certificate, and where to get it officially translated, and who to send certificate and translation to.

This can be most important if your pension scheme pays Widows Benefits.

Also lodge copies of your marriage certificate, and translation, with the pension-payers.

If you aren't marrying, but want your GF to inherit, check whether they will treat her as your widow.

Planning is really just a matter of thinking through the "What if....?" questions.