Hospitals Hurting

[Guest MonkeySee]

I am not sure if the Bangkok-Pattaya hospital is hurting or if it would be classified as a luxury hospital, but it seems the economic downturn is being felt. This article from the Nation.

 

BANGKOK: -- The global recession has driven more than half of wealthy foreign patients seeking medical care in upscale hospitals out of Thailand, a Bangkok seminar was told yesterday.

 

The crisis has also prompted those hospitals to lay off nurses and medical personnel, said Assoc Prof Piya Natewichien, who represented highend hospitals at the seminar.

 

Many luxury hospitals have closed down emergency units to save costs, he said. However, good management and effective adjustments would make these hospitals still capable of running their business with minimum risk of shutting down their operations.

 

Luxury hospitals at all levels had generated about Bt400 billion each year through their services for rich foreign patients especially those from the Middle East, he said.

 

These patients have sought medical treatment in other counties where the costs were lower, including India.

 

The luxury hospitals in Thailand affected most are those designated as Grade A, because their main source of revenue comes from Arabian patients, while those designated as Grades B and C have been less affected, because most of their patients are rich Thais.

 

Many welloff local patients have also turned to using the services of Grade B and C hospitals in light of their lower costs.

 

Wiroj na Ranong, a researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute, said local upmarket hospitals would face such a crisis for at least six more months. And by then, more rich patients will still be seeking fivestar treatment but not automatically in Thailand, but elsewhere, because they also feel the pinch of the economic downturn in their countries.

 

He said the crisis would further prompt middleclass or rich people to seek treatment in state hospitals - a practice he urged the government to pay special attention to.

 

He suggested government hospitals halt their future costly projects and seek perhead subsidies to treat more patients while the economic situation had not improved.

 

Dr Uachart Kanjanaphithak said reductions of medical staff were needed but would not be practised automatically in the first place. He said other options like cutting their work hours or duties would be better than making them redundant.

 

Dr Winai Sawasdiworn, secretarygeneral of the National Health Security Office, said the gloomy economy had prompted people to save their money for medical care instead of spending it on everyday life.

 

He called for a better public health system and welfare benefits, which would encourage people to spend regularly after they became confident that saving up for emergency treatment was not needed as much when good stateprovided medical services were available.

 

-- The Nation 2009-02-02

[Guest shebavon]

I am sure Bangkok Pattaya must be hurting somewhat. They always do a brisk business in the tourist trade, and this has not quite been a banner year for Pattaya.

 

From personal experience, they are still giving first-class treatment, at least in orthopedics. And from the looks of the ER, they are still getting a brisk trade in accident repairs.