Hello,

I live in the UK with my Thai wife and our son. My mother in law has recently become quite ill. We have been paying for her monthly treatment at a private hospital at quite some cost. From what information I can gather, she may soon require new treatment that is well beyond our means to pay for. Life or death treatment....

What would you advise? Are there means of getting cheaper/free health in Thailand (or other countries)?

Many thanks

If your MIL is Thai she can get free care at a governmrnt hospital. And if she lives up country, quality of care is usually better as well.

may be able to advise better if I knew nature of illnes and her location. You should also inquire which govt hospital she is registered with....and why she went to a private hospital to begin with.

Hi there Sheryl. Thanks for taking the time out to reply.

My ML lives in Nang Rong. She has type 1 diabetes for which we have been paying for her to go private as the state service was incredibly poor by all accounts. She has kidney problems which I do not know a great deal about. She has recently had a blood test for suspected leukaemia which is what would ramp up cost of treatment considerably. A figure of 400k THB per month was mentioned yesterday. May be inaccurate, but even a fraction of that is too much to cover.

Thanks

Update: unfortunately leukemia now confirmed. Given medication by the state hospital with a view to getting stronger prior to any treatment.

It may be unlikely but just to double check your MIL isn't covered by social insurance.

IF your MIL has or had a regular company type job, and has the better than normal pragun sungkom (social insurance)…..for which Thais pay a contribution (and the employer also pays), it can pay large bills.

I mention this because one of my wife's best friends with pragun sungkom had lymphoma and the government paid for her to stay in two Ram group hospitals (perhaps due to lack of public hospital beds). The bill came to over a million baht.

Government employees may get even better benefits including right for relatives to get higher class of treatment.

Presumably she is covered under the universal scheme AKA gold card or 30 baht scheme. And most likely registered at a district level hospital which would explain the low level of care. However for cancer treatment she will be referred to a regional center and quality of care in these is fine. Hopefully for her it will turn out to be Khon Kaen Univ hosp which is the best hosp in Issan.

So stick with the state system. The cost of treating leukemia privately is prohibitive. And I would not trust private hospitals up there to do it correctly either.