Me Very Lucky Man

Thai cooking is inventive and delicious, but the Bangkok Phuket Hospital goes the extra yard. My last lunch there was to die with. The lamp had a nutty flavor that I couldn’t quite place, but the pasta was definitely marinated Thai silk tassels (probably not from the original lampshade, though).
Good marks all around.

I checked out of the hospital too soon. A few more days of total inactivity and pain killers may have saved me a lot of grief after I got home and, of course, I miss the exotic meals.

I had been toying with the idea of posting a piece about medical care, but never thought I would end up with an inside story. When it comes to hospitals, observation – uncomfortable enough – far outweighs participation. A plunge through a rotten roof followed by a crash landing on a tiled cement floor sixteen feet below bought me an ambulance ride to the hospital with terrified A sitting next to me. It was the sort of fall that kills many people and, as I watched the blurred images of lamp posts on the screen of the ambulance windows, I was pretty certain that I would soon find out if anything was on the other side. The pain was so intense that I wished for it.

It’s weeks later now and, miraculously, I didn’t cross over, but I haven’t had a moment’s respite from the pain. I’m told that the healing will take a very long time. "Internal injuries” has a new meaning for me.

The emergency room attendants were efficient and I received speedy attention - all of it remembered out of focus now. Dr. Banyong Vetthayaikoon was on call that afternoon and he would be my attending physician for the rest of my stay. “You are very lucky man,” he said to me after he read the first set of x-rays. He said the same thing to me every day afterwards and often repeated it a few times with an inimitable, broad Thai smile. I had beaten The Reaper.


I was moved to a private room, but it would be three days before I could move my head enough to take a look around. I visited ailing friends in Thai hospitals before, so I had a pretty good notion of what it looked like. The most striking feature of Thai hospital rooms is that they are furnished to accommodate the patient’s relatives. A had a sofa bed not far from my bed and she stayed with me every night. Relatives are expected to stay with the patients and often even cook for them on an outdoor patio that comes equipped with cooking utensils and a sink – every room has an outside terrace. Relatives who cook for the patient help reduce the hospital bill and know the patient's favorite foods. A had a lot on her plate, as it was, and I didn't want her worrying about putting something on my plate. It took a few days before I became interested in food and I took my chances with the hospital's kitchen.

What hospital room would be complete without a TV? Programming was a little out of date.

What a wonderful concept it is to have loved ones tending to you in the alien, hospital environment. It beats the hell out of ‘visiting hours,’ a vase of wilting flowers and a rigid chair pulled up next to your bed. Family is very important to Thais. Their shared spiritual beliefs and reliance on one another is powerful medicine. There is a lot of healing power in that approach. It was not easy for A to listen to my litany of yelps and groans day after day and night after night, but having her near was a godsend. She fetched nurses when I got into serious trouble and gave me water, which I could not manage on my own. More importantly, I never felt alone.

Thai nurse’s white uniforms look like something out of the forties and frankly, that too was somehow comforting. It took me back to my youth – the time when I was sure I could trust almost everyone, especially professionals who wore uniforms. I don’t want the people who are temporarily in charge of my life to be casual. I want them to take me and their job seriously. I don’t want jokes and a happy-go-lucky demeanor dressed up in a flowered smock over jeans bouncing around me when I’m in deep trouble. It has nothing to do with expertise or caring - it's all about psychological visuals. So I appreciated the decorum and fastidious ways of my nurses. Only the housekeepers wore bright clothing.


Most of the nurses spoke a smattering of English, but not enough for me to communicate my needs verbally, so there was a lot of sign language between us – not always correctly interpreted. My biggest chuckles of the day came when they took my vital signs. Part of the routine was to find out if my bladder and bowels were functioning. Thais are incredibly bashful about these things and the nurses always posed the questions timidly and apologetically. “Very sorry… You pee-pee how many times?” followed by an embarrassed downward glance. “Very sorry, very sorry… you ka-ka how many times?” followed by an even deeper downward glance. Some only knew the words ‘pee-pee’ and ‘ka-ka’ and held up their fingers indicating that I should give them a number. It's my guess that those questions are the toughest part of their job.


I eventually had visitors. One couple (not in the picture above) arrived at one-thirty in the morning and didn’t think it was the least bit out of the ordinary. They came with a bag filled with milk cartons – calcium for my mending bones – and put them in my refrigerator. I think that gifts of food are common for hospital patients, because the hospital charges a small amount for every bit of food they give you – even water – and Thais can hardly afford their hospital bills, even though the fees are incredibly modest by western standards (just like Thai incomes).

My meals were a trip into the unknown. I had a choice of eating Thai food, or western food. Every day, an efficient dietician-type would come to my room with a menu on her clipboard, but she never let me look at it. She insisted on reading it to me. Her English skills were non existent and my deaf ears barely made out her renditions of the fare. I finally ended up nodding and smiling every now and then after she said something and then she would put a check mark on the menu. When my trays were delivered, it was a grab-bag surprise. Finally, frustrated by it all, I told her I wanted only fruits and vegetables from then on. She smiled knowingly, wrote something down on her pad and shuffled off. I thought I had solved the problem, but it was not to be. Odd dishes, some of them unpalatable, continued arriving and that’s how I ended up with “lamp stew” my last day there.

The hospital itself has a surprisingly modern look and is nicely laid out.

Equipment is up-to-date and the techs are well trained. All the doctors are Thai nationals. Foreign doctors are not allowed to practice in Thailand. Many of the Thai doctors are trained in the US and Europe. They are fastidious, caring and knowledgeable. Like the nurses, they take their jobs very seriously. Their incomes hardly compare to their western counterparts.

Buddhist shrines with statues of Buddha and Thailand’s revered monks are dotted throughout the hallways.

Going home.

Passing out thanks for the excellent care.

The exhausted wonder woman who shared my ordeal.

There are some glaring differences between the Thai hospital experience and the US hospital experience. For one thing, the hospital was very quiet - super quiet. There are no loud speakers in the hallways blaring out messages for Dr. So & So, etc.. Evidently, all paging is done on cell phones. They are so sensitive to quiet that they even discounted my room six dollars a day, because they said there was construction work going on close by. I never heard it. I have always been mystified by the signs you sometimes see outside US hospitals - the ones that read, Quiet - Hospital Zone, because the minute you step inside the hospital you walk into a wall of sound. My ultra quiet room in the Bangkok Phuket Hospital was a most welcome surprise.

But the most startling difference showed up when I looked at my final bill. My total cost, which included the ambulance ride, x-rays, lab tests, medicines, hospital room, radiologist fees, attending physician fees and, oh yes - water – was 37,000 Thai Baht, or 1,023.35 US Dollars!!! Hello? It’s an eye-opener. If I can walk away from a serious medical situation, having received excellent, up-to-date, long term care, for that amount of money in the impoverished country of Thailand, why can’t I do that in the USA – the richest nation on the planet? Medicine is big business in the US and the medical system is bed partners with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies who manipulate the government with ease. It's all about profits and private jets.

Medicine is not focused on making big bucks in Thailand. (My doctor told me he cannot afford to eat at the expensive restaurant where I work!) The Thai medical community's mission appears to be simply to cure people of ailments. Can you imagine? What a concept!