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Bangkok: Thailand has become a premiere healthcare destination for UAE nationals and residents, capitalising on the distrust and dissatisfaction of patients toward doctors in the UAE and its healthcare system.
Almost 70,000 Emiratis sought medical treatment in Thailand last year, up from 48,802 in 2005. In 2003 and 2004 respectively, medical visitors from the UAE were 22,914 and 41,175. Figures for 2007 are not available as yet.
Most of the patients are either sponsored by government agencies, including the Ministry of Health, the Dubai Department of Health and Medical Services (Dohms), Dubai Police, or are military or private patients.
Some travel to Thailand only for medical treatment, while others decide to include a medical check-up in their holiday plans.
Dissatisfaction
Salim Al Za'abi, UAE ambassador to Thailand, told Gulf News distrust and dissatisfaction in the UAE's medical services are recurrent themes among Emirati patients.
"We have good doctors and hospitals, but people don't trust them - they have not been able to convince the people ... they just don't trust the doctors in the UAE," he said.
There are many reasons for the distrust.
Some feel the medical treatment and care they get in the UAE are not worth the money they pay, some feel the service and care are too slow and insufficient, while others believe that many doctors lack the medical expertise and did not care enough about their patients. Some others have gone to Thailand to correct medical mistakes that occurred in the UAE.
Dr Ratana Meenaphant, rehabilitation medicine specialist at Bangkok Hospital, and her colleagues have encountered a few cases of medical mistakes among their Emirati patients.
"Right now, we have a boy with a brain injury. Doctors had put a shunt in the brain to release the pressure, but when we did an [magnetic resonance imaging] MRI, we found that the shunt was not working so we had to replace it," she said.
Unfortunately, the boy's condition has not improved much after arriving in July. Another case involves a patient of hers, who suffered from back pain caused by a herniated disc.
Dr Meenaphant told Gulf News the patient's doctors in the UAE had told him that his condition did not require surgery. After weeks of pain, he came to the Bangkok Hospital in June.
"He came here with a cane and three or four days after the surgery, he walked out on his own," she said. "He was angry at the doctors in the UAE because they let him suffer in pain."
The revelation comes as no surprise to Al Za'abi, who has heard it all before from Emirati medical visitors.
"Some people have complained that hospitals in the UAE cannot discover cancer and other serious illnesses. Some have complained that doctors in the UAE did no investigation and that there are poor physical therapy facilities," he said, adding that the medical sector is the UAE has room for improvement.
"Government hospitals don't provide the same services as in Thailand and private hospitals are too expensive.
"Also they get immediate appointments here if they want to see a doctor. In Dubai and the UAE, they have to wait for weeks sometimes."
Favoured destination: Host of advantages
The two top hospitals for Emiratis are Bumrungrad Hospital, also known as the American Hospital, and Bangkok International Hospital.
Almost 25 per cent of the 420,000 overseas patients at Bumrungrad Hospital and 10 per cent of foreign visitors at Bangkok International Hospital are from Gulf countries, of which the UAE constitute a sizable chunk.
Bumrungrad Hospital has Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, while Bangkok International Hospital was accredited by the Japan Audit and Certification Organisation for Environment and Quality.
Dr Peter Morley, chief medical officer at Bumrungrad Hospital, credits the hospital's popularity to its four-C philosophy:
1) Care: "It is as good as any you're going to get in the world - we can do a lot that other hospitals can't."
2) Cost: "It is 1/8 of the costs in the United States, 1/6 of the costs in Europe and UK, and I believe it is much cheaper than in the UAE."
3) Comfort: "We have doctors trained in the Middle East and translators, so culture and language are taken care of. We help with the arrival formalities, arrange hotels and provide halal food, among other facilities."
4) Continuity: "We advice the patients before they come and we give medical reports to their hospitals for continued care.
"We have solved the (post-care) problem of patients overseas by having a team of people who will deal with doctors for you and get the medicines to you."
Yolsiri Siamwalla, head of Middle East Customer Region at Bangkok International Hospital, credited the hospital's success to its many facilities and expertise in treating chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
"We get many cancer cases in the early and late stages. Some don't even know they had cancer until we did a check-up and gave them a PET [positron emission tomography] scan to detect the tumour," she said.
Yolsiri added that the hospital also offers precise radiation therapy, which targets and kills the danger cells only. Other advantages at the hospital include its strong physical rehabilitation programme with a gym and a swimming pool, and fast service in fitting patients with prosthetic limbs.
"We're a big hospital. We don't need to special order medical supplies. We can keep a large stock of supplies," she said with a shrug.
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