The Medical Tourist

I am 55, and prior to arriving in Thailand, had not had a colonoscopy. For five years Margit has been asking me when I was going to get the colonoscopy that is recommended for all when they reach 50. Last summer I announced to Margit that I would get it when we reached Thailand on our trip. For weeks she did not take me seriously. Slowly, it dawned on her that I might actually be planning on going through with it, though I still don’t think she was convinced. But why not? Thailand has a reputation for good medical care, enough so that it is listed as a major destination for medical tourism. I figured that as I was touring through anyway, I might add the medical part to the tourism part. Now if I had been getting a heart transplant, or cancer treatment, I would have looked at things differently, but given that colonoscopy is a rather straight-forward procedure, I thought this would be an ideal thing to have done where the costs are lower.

On arriving in Bangkok, Margit had to visit a clinic to get another immunization, as well a some blood work, and I then repeated my plan to stop by to inquire about the colonoscopy. It was only then that I think she came to realize I was serious.

On arrival at the hospital the next day, I was favorably impressed. It looked like any large, new American hospital, complete with specialty units and many clinics with people swarming all over. In fact, it even had a Starbucks. With that, I knew the standards had to be high. There I met the gastroenterologist. He spoke excellent English and reviewed the procedure with me. Twenty minutes later, I was scheduled for the next day.

The next morning, I headed off to the hospital. Everything went like clockwork. I received personal attention from the time I arrived, and when I woke up after the procedure, the doctor gave me my results and I was good to go; to the Starbucks, of course. While having a cup of coffee, the Patient Care Representative spotted me. It turns out he was a British doctor who had semi-retired by becoming a PCR, first for ten years in China, and for the last few in Thailand. He noted that China still has a lot of catching up to do in their care, but that the private Thai hospitals were quite good. We spoke a bit about medical tourism, and he noted that for all of the publicity about it, the numbers were still quite small, a fact I have read about in American medical journals. The exception was for many Middle Eastern countries. He noted that the hospital had contracts with a half dozen of them, a fact that was reinforced by the number of Arab people I saw walking around the hospital. They were quite generous contracts apparently, as they provided free care not only to the patient, but paid the cost for two family members to accompany them, as well. He also discussed the attitude that different nationalities had toward their care. The Middle Easterners want to stay in the hospital until they were completely recovered, while Americans want to leave the hospital ASAP. Part of the expectation from care back home.

“So was I satisfied?,” he wanted to know.

“Completely,” I responsed. Good for another ten years.

Mitch
1/30/11