can anybody give me advice on this.

[Khon Kaen Dave]

A friend of mine died last month of cancer.his brother came over to see him a few days before he died.

He paid the hospital 500.000 bht for his brothers treatment.My friends daughter came over as well.She gave the

hospital her name and address,but never signed anything saying she would pay for any treatment.

The brother left the country earlier to avoid paying any more money.The deceased's daughter

Left the country,after having him cremated,with his ashes.She is now saying that the hospital

want another 150,000 bht.What are her options.She is now back in the uk.

Advice please.

Thank you in advance

KKD

[steven100]

She is back in the UK right ... not in thailand ! what are her options ? one option comes to mind !!

[ubonjoe]

Moved to the Health, Body and Medicine Forum.

[thaiduncankk]

I suppose if she has no intention of visiting Thailand again, she could ignore it. I am not sure they would, or could, pursue it any further.

If, on the other hand, she intends to revisit, she could, and I stress the word could, encounter problems on arrival, depending on how much of her details they have.

Out of curiosity, which hospital was it ?

[BritTim]

I do not see that the daughter is liable for the treatment costs unless she agreed to be. Your friend's estate may be liable, but I am guessing there is little of no money there the hospital can go after. Unless your friend's daughter feels a moral responsibility to pay up, I would suggest a polite letter to the hospital saying "sorry, but my brother had no money left at the time of his death; you will have to write this off as a bad debt".

[darrendsd]

There is nothing they can do, however be aware that they could contact the Thai Police about this, if they do there will be a record on the Immigration database if she tries to enter Thailand again, there was a story on here about this happening not so long ago

Edited February 8, 2016 by darrendsd

[Sheryl]

If she is (as seems likely) his heir, and if he left any money, then I would start by asking for an itemized bill.

If he did nto leave any money - or if she is not his heir - then a reply to that effect.

[Basil B]

It is very unusual to think of anyone leaving this world without them leaving something behind, even if it is only debts.

Therefore I assume there would be a legal requirement for someone to manage and wind up the estate of the deceased, file probate, pay due taxes before any distribution of assets.

In this case in Thailand, and the UK if he had assets in the UK, the hospital should contact the executors of his estate.

My thought are the Hospital will recover the debts by padding out the bills of others.

Once again problems due to those who do not insure themselves.

[uhuh]

A Thai hospital will not try to recover 150000 THB from overseas.

It's not worth the fees for lawyers etc.

Even hospitals wo have much higher outstanding bills to be paid by customers abroad (e.g. BPH) just write them off.

[jimmybkk]

This sounds a bit strange to me. I'm certainly not an expert, but 650,000 Baht in treatment costs for the last few days of a terminally ill cancer patient sounds helluva expensive. Is it not all about pain relief & sedation at that stage? This BBC article from December 2012 puts the cost of morphine at GBP 2.00 per week: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20625482 and suggests it's as good as anything at relieving the pain from cancer.

What would the hospital have done if the brother hadn't shown up to pay the bill?

I can't think of many Thai institutions that would allow a fit and healthy foreigner to run up a bill of 650K without some kinda watertight agreement in place and assurances of repayment, never mind a terminally ill cancer patient.

My condolences to you for the loss of your friend. RIP.

[Sheryl]

Nothing in the post suggests that this was for care in the last days of life. At that amount I think we can assume that at surgery and/or chemo was involved and probably over a period of weeks if not months prior to his death.

[NickJ]

One of the biggest hospitals tried to pull something like this on me. After my relative died I was going over paperwork and the was a 40k balance. This list was not itemized. I asked them to itemize it and after ten minutes I was given an even hazier list. Once it was broken down there was a 15k charge for a Death Cerificate. Dozens of restaurant charges , even though the patient was on a feeding tube. Thousands more for private phone calls, even though the patient could not speak. Charges from a Dr that was not listed as a treating Dr.........Like I said. This was from one of the big famous Bkk hospitals.

[Sheryl]

Yes, always get an itemized bill and scrutinize closely.

[lopburi3]

Be advised OP advised in another post (closed) that brother had paid 180k (not 500k) and provided a false address to hospital and departed to avoid paying more - so total bill may not have been as high as it may seem from this thread OP.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/893475-can-anybody-help-with-thisadvice-needed/#entry10402034

[Sheryl]

Indeed. Also seems there was a premeditated attempt to dodge the bill.

When costs like this are "written off" by a hospital what actually happens is that other patients pay it in the form of higher fees than would be the case if all bills were paid in full.

I'm surprised they released the body.