The fancy private hospital

So, we’ve been told a few times that Siriraj is the public hospital and the fancier building next door is the private hospital. People generally go to the public hospital and expect to wait a long time but pay very little, and people who have the money can go to the private hospital and get treated quickly, for a high cost.

We didn’t plan on ever seeing the fancy, private hospital... but my asthma didn’t respond well to the change in climate and pollution of Bangkok, so I ended up getting to take a special visit. I was able to get an appointment same-day with a pulmonary specialist- which they said would have taken up to two months at Siriraj. I ended up seeing the doctor for less than 10 minutes (although I’m fairly sure that’s because I got lost in the shuffle with the language barrier with the nurses), but he came to all the same conclusions my doctor in the States did, and (thankfully) prescribed all the same meds. And (also thankfully), “expensive” to Thai people is still not near American-health-care-expensive levels.

Today, the therapist we were working with was explaining the hospital system a little more for us. Apparently, both hospitals are government-run, but the public hospital can’t turn anyone away, meaning they do a lot more pro-bono work, and so the ”private“ hospital is just to help make more money to cover the costs. She said it was like a charity, and that the costs were basically just convenience fees. Apparently, the doctors work at both hospitals, and go back and forth- so the quality of medical care is exactly the same, with the only differences being how quickly you get seen, and how shiny the building is. Thought that was pretty interesting!