jimmiejackson

As always, thank you so much for your help and kindness.

Yes the brother (Uncle) of the baby is now in Thailand and wants to talk to someone. The baby is in NICU in India. I realise there is probably very limited information they can give but I think it would just help put his mind at ease to at least ask questions or understand options for the future from someone who has the requisite skills and experience.

Thanks for your response Sheryl. The baby was just over 27 weeks at birth, and was born on April 6 this year.

Hi all, I'm helping a friend in a difficult situation. I'm hoping someone has some personal experience or that Sheryl, who I am eternally grateful for due to her immense help over the years, has someone to recommend. Short summary: My friend's sister delivered a baby prematurely in India. The baby underwent several tests and has been given a diagnosis of periventricular leukomalacia. Of course, the family are currently devastated and this is being compounded by a perceived lack of expertise, clarity of options, treatment options etc. My friend is in Bangkok and I want him to consult with the best (I assume) Neurologist available to put his mind at ease that someone is available to discuss these things with and to give recommendations, second opinions etc. Money is absolutely not an object in this case. Thank you for your help!

Thanks all for your help and advice! Will organise these things: Copy of Blue Tabien Baan and wife's ID card. Copy of Chanote. Ensure you've filed a TM30 informing of your new address.

I could not find an answer to this exactly so trying to ask! I have done several extensions of stay to a Non-Imm O based on marriage to a Thai citizen in CW. This year I bought a house with a mortgage and my wife and child are already in the Tabien Baan but I am not. The person taking care of it said it may take 2-3 months to add me (I am not Thai) so best to do the extension first then deal with it. Until now I have always rented in Thailand so the rental contract, letter from owner and their tabien baan was always used. Now I'm not sure what to do, as I live with my wife and child in the house which we own/are jointly paying a mortgage on but there is no real "proof" that I also own the house yet. If anyone knows exactly what paperwork is required for them to process the extension in this case that would be very helpful, thanks.

As a final update on this one, unfortunately he passed away on Friday. I feel confident we did the best that could be done with the circumstances that were presented. That being said, the final bill for everything will probably approach half a million Baht and that was with us doing everything possible to keep prices down. So as sad as it is I hope someone learns a lesson on how important it is to have good insurance, for the people you love as much as for yourself. Thanks again to anyone who took their time to give us input and help.

Again, thanks for the input everyone. I'll keep updating this thread. Maybe someone will have some further input that will be useful and it could help someone out in the future. I think it needs to be kept in mind that my info mainly comes from Thai Doctors>his Thai friend>me. So over and above the cultural differences in communication between Doctors and patients/friends of patients, there's translation issues too I'm sure. So after some time at the Chest Institute they ran into a new issue, he had an obstruction in his colon (? I think) which meant he couldn't digest food, he wasn't clearing his bowels and they ended up having to suck out a lot of liquid food that wasn't being digested. So the Chest Institute arranged for him to be moved to Ratchvidhi Hospital for emergency surgery. The surgery was performed and apparently it was a success and it was just some minor tissue obstruction. So now he is in ICU at Ratchvidhi Hospital and won't be transferred back to the Chest Institute. It seems like there really wasn't a full transfer of documentation from one hospital to another and so tests were repeated, his Thai friend had to explain a lot of things to the Doctors and nurses. They tried to take him off the ventilator and he was able to breathe on his own for a few hours but then got so panicked they had to put it back. So at the moment I'm not too sure what the status is of anything, I hope to get more information soon. We were able to raise some money but it is fast running out, probably in the next few days. After that I don't know what we can do as everyone who is able or willing to donate has already done so. As an aside, I walked through the Emergency Department of Rachvidhi Hospital and while I'm sure the staff are doing their best the sight of seemingly endless patients waiting in hallways on stretchers is something to behold. Nobody likes paying for insurance but if your backup is "I've got Thai Social Fund" I implore you to rethink it.

Thank you to all for their responses and Sheryl for her valuable information and keeping this thread on topic. I'm sorry I haven't updated earlier, as you can imagine it's been a challenging time. I wanted to give an update as someone in the future may get some benefit from it. There was never any clear answers provided by Camilian as to what would happen if the bills weren't paid. In the background a lot of work was being done with everyone pulling in any contact or favour they had to get him transferred to a Government hospital, the two top choices being Chula and the Chest Institute. Eventually, somehow, he got put as first on the list for an ICU bed at the Chest Institute, where he had already been receiving outpatient treatment and was recommended by many, including the Specialist I took him to see at one of the high end hospitals a couple of years ago, as the best place for him to be. The call came through "he can transfer here now but it has to be now or never" from the Chest Institute. Unfortunately I was unable to attend Camilian at the time due to work so his Thai friend dealt with Camilian for a bill that at that point had over 200,000 Baht outstanding. She was able to negotiate them down to pay 150,000 there and then and the rest in monthly instalments. This was something we were explicitly told by them that they would never consider, however in the end I guess they knew it was that or nothing. He is now in the Chest Institute which is running in the region of 10-15,000 Baht per day, as opposed to the 30-40,000 Baht a day at Camilian. He has been knocked out on either Fentanyl or Morphine the whole time, the first time he was "awake" was yesterday however as he is still dosed up and on a ventilator he could do nothing much but nod or shake his head in between falling back to sleep. But it's progress. No clear answers yet on how the Pneumonia treatment is going although it does seem that the standard of care there is very good. So now we start the whole thing again I guess. There is some money that's come through from friends etc but it won't last long. I don't know what happens if we can't pay the bill at the new hospital. So we pray for his recovery and will deal with it day by day as we have been.

Thank you for both of your updates, this helps a lot and I appreciate your time.

I could afford it but the price for a lawyer to sell a 3 year old phone and a barely functional laptop probably, I'm just guessing here, doesn't really make sense ????

Thanks to all who replied. I was hoping Sheryl would respond so thank you for that. Called the Embassy, they weren't interested in doing anything except informing his family where he was. Hospital is going around in circles so I've informed his Thai friend of what you suggested and hopefully we can get somewhere with it.

He isn’t on overstay but there is no money in the bank. He has no assets to speak of, nothing that would be even worth taking the effort to sell. He’s made decisions that are very contrary to the way I do things but I’m not going to just abandon him. Appreciate the help so far.

From what I understand the Embassy was contacted before and not interested in helping but I can try again, thanks.

Yes this seems to be the option we might have to take. I doubt and believe I’ve read before they can’t just throw you out onto the street. So I assume it’s going to be their responsibility to offload the problem to another provider somewhere.