Tag: Hospitals

St Louis Hospital Bangkok

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St Louise hospital bangkok review

Some people find the thought of having to visit any of the Bangkok hospitals daunting, maybe it’s the prospect of a confusing language barrier or the association with the vermin filled streets outside! Well, on the contrary, Bangkok hospitals have a pretty squeaky clean reputation and even attract people from across Europe and America, making Thailand one of the leading countries for medical tourism.

Hospitals in Thailand are mostly private and offer a selection of differently priced hospitals to choose from… but this leaves people confused as to which Thai hospital to choose. In rare cases, some of even the most expensive hospitals in Bangkok have been known to delay proper treatment in order to keep patients longer and make more money for them.

Well, I’d say I’ve become quite an expert on Bangkok hospitals during my 7 months living in Thailand and numerous unfortunate mishaps. I’ve suffered torn ligaments, broken toes, infected bug bites, dog bites and much more! Woe is me! However I have loyally used the same hospital in Bangkok, St Louis Hospital, and I’m guessing it’s also one of the cheapest hospitals in Bangkok.

Bangkok Hospital Review

St Louis Hospital Bangkok is a non-profit, Catholic hospital located right next to BTS Surasak in Sathorn. During lunchtimes, you can find a busy little market in the courtyard at the front of St Louis Hospital selling clothes, treats and cooked lunches. When you enter the main doors you’ll find an impressive, huge, shiny lobby with a welcome desk. The staff are helpful and speak reasonably good English to register you and point you in the right direction. You don’t need to make appointments and despite turning up without a reservation, you can usually be seen within 20 minutes of arriving. Amazeballs!

Did I mention how big and shiny St Louis Hospital is? I’ve visited St Louis Bangkok about 3 or 4 times altogether now – Orthopaedics, dermatology and A&E – and every single time, the doctors and nurses have shown compassion, concern and confidence in their own abilities. They are enthusiastic to help, patient with your questions and knowledgeable about the course of action. St Louis hospital is way cheaper than most of the other Bangkok hospitals and I think I trust the staff there more because of the fact that it’s not for profit.

Each time I have visited St Louis Hospital Bangkok, my hospital bill has averaged around 1000 baht (that’s a little over £20 or $30). I have had cheaper hospital experiences in Thailand up north but this is the capital city and St Louis Hospital is quite shiny. My first visit, the doctor gave me a splint for my torn ligament which was 800 baht plus the doctor’s and staff fees at around 300 baht. When I went to A&E I was prescribed antibiotics for a couple of hundred baht plus maybe 250 baht for the doctor’s time. Another time I had to pay 1500 baht for some fancy medicine.

Read about my other hospital experiences outside of Bangkok – Bitten by a dog in Pai and Maharaj Hospital in Chiang Mai.

My review of St Louis Hospital Bangkok:  10/10

 

Health Problems In Thailand

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Difficulties of an expat moving to Thailand

Living abroad in another country like Thailand does not come without it’s challenges. Near the beginning of my move I went through a stage of paranoia from the culture shock, I then went through a long period of homesickness and my thoughts even drifted to going back home. But the homesickness eventually passed, I felt like I had begun to relax into my environment, and so the paranoia subsided along with it. It’s not only emotionally troublesome though, I found there were plenty of physical difficulties to deal with after living in a country so completely different to my own.

If you’re going to live in Thailand for more than a few months, it might be helpful to be prepared for the extreme change in atmosphere, change in diet and some of the problems it might pose. Man, the amount of time I’ve had bits fall off, ominous skin changes and all sorts of weird things go on with my body…

The first problems I had in Thailand were purely heat related

For example, I wore my converse trainers everywhere. See, before now I have always hated flip flops and open toed shoes with a vengeance but… it backfired and I ended up getting a foot infection. My toe went itchy and basically looked like it was going to rot away and fall off – in fact after just a couple of weeks my toenail actually did fall off (sorry, probably too much info). In the end, after some time spent with Dr Google, I resorted to trying white vinegar that I bought from the local corner shop.

In the hot Thai weather, fungal foot infections can be pretty common, but soaking your foot in vinegar (mixed 50:50 with water) twice a day for thirty minutes is supposedly one of the cheapest and most effective treatments for it (or for it’s prevention).

A rash spread across my back, chest and arms

The rash was spotty, like welts or mosquito bites, and very itchy. It looked like some sort of tropical skin disease… It turned out to be a simple case of Prickly Heat (or heat rash), and with a healthy mixture of skin aeration and some 35 baht prickly heat powder from the Seven Eleven, the rash was much better in just a few days. Although I think it’s wise to cover up and have some modesty in Thailand, it can also be slightly unhealthy as your skin needs the circulation of fresh air in order to help prevent skin reactions and infections.

After just a few weeks living in Thailand, the skin on my hands started to peel away

Now I’m not talking just a bit – I’m talking like when a snake sheds it’s skin! Grossss! Anyway, this lasted maybe a month and then went completely back to normal. I put it down to adjusting to the hot weather and constant sweatiness living in Thailand.

Diet in Thailand

I ate very healthily back at home, but being kitchenless in Bangkok, I don’t manage to eat as well as I used to. Not only do I end up feeling a little rough and haggered from the lack a balanced diet, but at least once a month I end up ill. I basically get a bout of mild food poisoning every month… England is too hot on health & safety rules and it makes us English folk puny and weedy when we eat the food in other more laid back countries like Thailand. Stoopid health & safety…

Hair falling out

My last health problem I had freaked me out so much that I eventually ended up giving in and seeing a doctor about it. I had problems healing early on after moving to Thailand – I had some piercings which wouldn’t heal and my bruises would take ages to disappear. Finally I gave up and removed my piercings – in my mind ignorance can be bliss and I thought if I can’t see the problem it can’t hurt me! I speculated that it was probably just change of diet and environment messing up my body. But then for about three months after this my hair started falling out. I’m talking loads… everywhere.

I ignored my hair falling out for a while but then, obviously, the effects of this started to become visible on my thinning hair. This time Dr Google scared me with it’s primarily cancerous suggestions (why do I still use google to diagnose myself?!) and I consulted a doctor at the nearby hospital. The doctor basically confirmed what I’d originally thought… the extreme change in diet and environment had basically just caused my body to spaz out.

Anyway, prescribed zinc supplements and multivitamins helped fix me up within a month or two… But my thick locks has suffered irreversible damage :'(. As much as I always prefer a balanced diet to resorting to supplements and vitamins, I highly recommend buying some if you’re staying in Thailand for a long time.

(Update) Insect Bite!

One day I woke up with a sore, swollen elbow. I thought nothing of it, my boyfriend even joked that maybe a bug had laid eggs in my elbow. I’m such a hypochondriac it’s not even funny – I immediately had visions of the Egyptian scarabs borrowing through people’s skin like in the movies… We laughed about it though, until later that evening it had become so painful and swollen that I couldn’t even move it and I started to worry. I think the rule is that if it’s red, hot and painful – go to the doctors asap because it’s infected.

So the next afternoon I did. The receptionists at the hospital looked at it, conversed worriedly with one another and then hastily sent me to the Emergency department (again man!!! What a joke I am!). It turned out to be an infection caused by an unknown insect bite and it got quite bad over the next couple of days while the antibiotics kicked in. I even worried that maybe I’d been poisoned by the flesh rotting venom of an exotic spider. (I can be a tad irrational sometimes ;p)

 

Most of my expat friends and people who have visited me in Thailand have also struggled with the physical changes in Thailand – reduced healing and hair loss being the worst culprit of all. On the other hand though, my boyfriend doesn’t ever seem to have suffered any health problems in Thailand so far – apart from food related illness. I’m such a punoid!

 

Worried about the hospitals in Thailand? You can read all about my visit to St. Louis Hospital in Bangkok here.

Thai Hospital – Bitten By A Dog

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thailand bitten by a dog

If you get bitten by a pet dog in Thailand and are even slightly unsure of the dog’s health, then it is recommended to go to hospital just to be safe – You may still need a tetanus or rabies jab. Most dog owners in Thailand give their pets annual rabies innoculations but unless you know the owner personally, this is a slightly grey area. If you have had a preventary rabies vaccination in the past, you still need to have a rabies jab after being bitten – many vaccinations only delay the effects of rabies, they do not completely protect against it.

dog temple

So many freakin dogs in Thailand

Accident #2 – Dog Bite In Thailand

Recently me and my boyfriend were on holiday in Pai, we were staying at a pretty nice hotel too; it was our treat after slumming it during our travels in Chiangmai. But damn there was this annoying dog that barked incessantly all day and all morning. One day it was yelping and whining outside so Happy went out to investigate it. The barking stopped and he returned to our room 10 minutes later squealing and bouncing around about how cute it was – even though it had apparently spooked him enough at one point to make him nervously scramble up a wall like a little girl.

We figured it was the Thai hotel’s dog. It had a collar and looked in quite good condition, quite young. We later sat outside on the pavillion as the dusk started to peacefully fall and the dog innocently frolicked around the gardens. We were playing around with my camera and when we got bored we headed back to our hotel room, dog following behind entertaining himself in the bushes. Happy was distracted by something in the garden and crouched down to take a photo, the camera strap dangling in front of his body.

dog bite

10 seconds before going schizo

For some reason, this seemed to awaken something in the dog and it excitedly jumped at Happy while becoming increasingly more enthusiastic and bitey until it was simply just gnawing at his legs as he helplessly tried to get away. Happy then passed the camera to me… along with the dogs attention with it. The dog jumped at me and bit at my dress as I edged backwards and dodged it’s advances. By this stage I was getting pretty freaked out and began to use my camera and it’s strap to keep the dog at bay and tangle him up. At one point though, this completely backfired, my £500 camera slipped from my hands, crashed to the floor and as I tried to grab it back, the dog misconstrued this as me merely playing with him.

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Action shot!

The dog darted off mischievously, my camera still caught around his neck clunking and scraping along the walkway until he clumsily tumbled over into a flower bed, legs kicking in the air. I quickly snatched my camera back and my boyfriend distracted the dog with a metal pole lying on the grass nearby. When we got back to our room his ankle was bleeding – not a lot but nonetheless the dog bite had broken the skin. We told the Thai woman at reception who apologised and gave us chemicals to clean the wound, but her english was not great. I asked about rabies and she looked at me kind of nervously and said ‘no’, very unconfidently. It almost felt like she was picking an answer to keep me happy without actually understanding my question.

But, I couldn’t help plaguing myself with thoughts and images of my boyfriend dying of rabies in Thailand! I figured it’s always best to be safe and be sure than to regret not doing something so simple like going to the hospital two minutes down the road. So despite his reluctance, I managed to convince him to simply just ask for advice at the hospital. You don’t need to have treatment there, we can just ask their opinion to be sure. Happy was bitten by a pet dog and I wasn’t sure how it works with being bitten by pet dogs in Thailand. He’d also fortunately already been vaccinated so we we weren’t sure how that worked either, whether he’d even need any rabies treatment.

Pai hospital

We arrived at the hospital reception of accident and emergency later that evening, it was eerily quiet and devoid of patients. I approached the receptionist and tried to explain in my best thai that ‘he’d been bitten by a dog. But a pet dog. Is it a problem?’ I can speak much better thai than I can actually understand back, so she replied with a few wordy sentences and I stared blankly at her. She then walked us over to a small ward with about three nurses behind the desk.

I tried my best to explain the situation in Thai as the nurses came and went interchangeably. ‘He’s been bitten by a pet dog. Do we need to do anything?’ There was a lot of Thai discussion amongst themselves and they didn’t really ask much after I said this. Their english didn’t seem to be a great deal better than my Thai either. There was some more chattering between the nurses. Happy started to rummage through his pockets for his vaccination card when one of them silently slinked her way towards his side, trigger happily squirting away on her syringe. We interrupted and tried to point out that he’d actually already been vaccinated before so weren’t sure if he’d maybe require a different shot. The nurse at this point stared blankly at us and turned to her colleague.

There was more confused, misunderstood clacking amongst the nurses in the hospital and more enthusiastic attempts to inject Happy.  They finally appeared to understand and decided to inject him anyway. I guess we were just being a little paranoid and nervous of the language barrier.

This hospital visit cost 590 baht altogether, complete with yet another goodie bag of drugs. Thai hospitals certainly seem to like chucking around antibiotics and painkillers whenever they get the chance. We left the hospital feeling slightly dishevelled – entering on the expectation of a calm, short discussion of whether he actually even needed treatment, and leaving after being pounced on by an overly-eager, needle wielding nurse, seemingly disinterested of any relevant details or medical history.

And after all that, when we finally returned to our hotel later that night, we found the fluent english speaking owner waiting desperately for us. He apologised profusely and informed us that his dog didn’t have rabies afterall as it had indeed been vaccinated…

 

Thai Hospital – Two Visits In Five Days

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experience in a thai hospital

Thailand accident #1 – Trail biking

I’ve always been pretty bad on a motorbike, I even had to sell my 125cc because I was just so crap on it. So why the hell I decided to go trail biking through the jungle in Thailand, I do not know. In fact, I was so terrible that I fell off the motorbike so much so that it later malfunctioned and the brakes became stuck on the road journey back. The bike skidded and flew me to the tarmac where this time I was not so lucky. My wrist hurt like hell but basically, as nice as the Thai staff were at the bike centre, after earlier surprised remarks and jokes at the sight of a girl doing trail biking I felt like I had something to prove.

So I sucked it up and we continued along the road back to the centre until the pain in my left hand became so much that I couldn’t even grip the handle let alone pull in the clutch, so I surrendered to the pain. They called somebody to pick me up and when I jumped into the truck I eagerly and curiously removed my glove to sneak a glance at the damage. And there it was, a lump the size of half a golf ball sticking out the top of my wrist. I cringed at the thought of it being my bone sticking out… And that was how I had my little accident in Thailand.

Chiang mai Maharaj Hospital

A few hours later we arrived at Chiangmai Maharaj hospital, a large government run hospital located outside of the old city. I found my way to the hospital registration desk to sign myself up and the lady pointed me in the direction of the department to go to. I wandered inside the busy Thai hospital ward and a staff member waved me over to his desk as another man crept up behind me and took my form from me. He then roughly grabbed my arm, completely unobservant of the large misshapen lump on top, and proceeded to slap a blood pressure monitor over the top of my shirt. I whinced and pulled back slightly as he roughed my arm up as if it had wronged him in some way. Then the other hospital staff member questioned me, glanced at my arm and pointed me over to the emergency room.

I actually found the Thai doctors in accident and emergency to be very warm and helpful – most of them seemed to be students at the hospital and they all spoke relatively good english. They rushed me over to a stretcher and made me lie down. I felt pretty stupid considering I’d only hurt my wrist – a stretcher seemed a little overkill when there was a patient opposite, unconscious and looking pretty messed up. My boyfriend, with his slightly irrational fear of dirt and hospitals, shuffled nervously at the sight of the grubby floor behind me. They were good at keeping me up to date on what was going on – probably better service than the hospitals in England in fact. At the same time though, they didn’t really seem like they knew much about what was going on with my injury. I had about a team of five Thai student doctors alternating between investigating and prodding away at me and then gathering around for a group discussion on what it could be.

They sent me for an x-ray after only an hour of arriving at the hospital – a porter wheeled me away on my stretcher and I couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed at being unnecessarily pushed around and on display for a wrist injury. When I arrived back at the hospital ward, another foreigner had arrived and she was tearfully led out on a stretcher while her male friend and the group of doctors lingered around her bed. One of the non-student doctors appeared beside me and excitedly explained that they were from Brazil; it was almost as if he was reuniting me with a long lost sister. He then went on, “she had a dog bite her!’ He then grinned jollily and made bitey impressions to which I felt a bit mean giggling at.

The girl next to me ended up having to pay a total of 7000 baht for her hospital treatment and a rabies shot – apparently it was a more expensive kind ‘made from human’ as they had run out of the kind ‘made from horse’. One of the doctors informed me that my wrist wasn’t broken, but was probably a torn ligament or muscle and that I shouldn’t use it and should keep it bandaged up. She didn’t seem particularly confident to be honest but I guess stuff like that can be hard to diagnose when it’s still so swollen. And I certainly can’t fault her customer service after she kept me updated practically every 10 minutes.

All in all my Thailand hospital visit was not a bad experience at all (ignoring the overly aggressive blood pressure guy). For two hours worth of attention from the team of Thai scrubs, two bandages, an x-ray and a goodie bag of drugs it only cost me 691 baht. That’s not even £15 or $20….

Whatever! At least now I have an excuse to wear a cool ninja glove-looking splint…

 

Read about my Thailand hospital experience #2 here