The Guardian [25th June 2005]

On the edge of Bangkok’s seedy Arab quarter, which squats between the stations of Nana and Ploenchit on the Skytrain, some magnificent steel and glass palaces have sprung up in recent years. Most are five star hotels, but Bumrungrad merely looks like one. With a Starbucks, an Au Bon Pain, a MacDonald’s and a food hall in the foyer, free Internet access, top quality accommodation in private rooms, this complex does not fit the stereotype of a Third World hospital; indeed, it far exceeds what most of us are used to in the First World – but then that is the idea.
The business plan is simple and brilliant: provide world class medical services to Westerners and other wealthy foreigners at a fraction of the cost they would pay in their own countries. Americans in particular are attracted by the proposal to have the heart by-pass operation or the laser eye surgery or the chemotherapy – or merely the annual executive check-up for over fifties – in an exotic Southeast Asian location with the option of convalescing on a nearby tropical beach afterwards at, roughly, twenty percent of the costs stateside (airfare included). The drugs and the medical care are of equal standard to anything in the West and the service is – well, charming and efficient as only Thais know how. Not surprising, therefore, that Bumrungrad has come to symbolise both the achievements and aspirations of latter day Bangkok.
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