Bangkok Hospital - Bangkok
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General description
[History] Bangkok Hospital was established in 1972 by a group of doctors and pharmacists. Over the years it has gradually expanded its network to many provinces in Thailand and is now the flagship hospital of the Bangkok Hospital Group.
[Positioning and size] The Bangkok Hospital Group is a great cluster of medical facilities with a branding problem. They have too many clinics with different names (e.g. Wattanasoth Hospital is the name of the cancer center). While their branding strategy is confusing at best (they call one section the Bangkok International Hospital), from the patients perspective all these facilities do feel like one huge hospital complex - and all of them have a very international feel. For convenience sake we refer to all of them as the Bangkok Hospital Group.
They employ 400 full time and consultant physicians and 600 nurses. About 2,500 patients a day - 32% foreigners.
[Ownership structure] The Bangkok Hospital Group is owned by the Bangkok Dusit Medical Services PLC (problems with names seem to run in the corporate family). Their ticker symbol at the Bangkok stock exchange is BGH. At the end of 2006 BGH employed more than 10,000 staff. All the hospitals of Bangkok Dusit Medial Services PLC combined treated about 500,000 of the 1.2 Million foreigners who came to Thailand for medical treatment in 2006.
[Accreditation & awards] Bangkok Hospital was the first private hospital in Thailand to receive the ISO 9002 and 9001:2000 accreditation; Prime Ministers Export Award for best service provider; first price of the Hospital Management Asia Award in 2002; among the 200 "Best Under A Billion" companies chosen by Forbes Magazine two years in a row.
[Reputation & impression] The Bangkok Hospital Group is one of the top five medical facilities in Thailand and is usually also listed as one of the best hospitals in Asia. After the Bumrungrad International Hospital it is probably the second biggest player in the medical tourism industry worldwide and has strongly contributed to Thailand's great reputation in this industry.
Specialties
[General surgery] The Bangkok Heart Hospital was established 1989 and has a large group of experienced adult & pediatric cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, cardiac anesthesiologists, cardiac rehabilitation physicians and radiologists.
The Wattanosoth Hospital specializes on the prevention and the treatment of cancer.
Other specialized centers and clinics include a neuroscience center, a urological center, a kidney center, a GI & liver center, an endoscopy center, an orthopedic center, a diabetes and endocrine center, a surgery clinic (for minor surgery) and an internal medicine clinic.
The hospital also offers special packages for hip and knee replacements as well as various laparoscopic packages (keyhole or minimally invasive surgery). .
[Plastic surgery] The Bangkok Hospital also does plastic surgery, but plastic surgery is not it's main focus. Package prices are available among others for blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), breast augmentation, rhinoplasty (nose surgery) and face lifts.
[Dentistry] The Bangkok Dental Center opened a sparkling new facility in the beginning of 2007 in Pechaburi Road. While the set-up with three different locations (two other locations for dental treatment at the location of the main hospital still continue to serve customers) is a little confusing, all of them offer first class service and an army of specialists in all areas: general dentistry, pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, implants, esthetic dentistry, endodontics, periodontics and oral & maxillofacial surgery. Many dentists were trained abroad and English is not a problem.
[LASIK] The Bangkok LASIK Center is a rather small facility, hardly a 'center'. We keep it in the list due to the overall reputation of the Bangkok Hospital. If you 'also want to have LASIK', besides other types of medical treatment, it is worth a consideration. If you are looking for LASIK only, there are more professional places around.
Other related information
List of overseas representative offices of the Bangkok Hospital
News clippings
Sun, Sand and Scalpels - Medical Tourism article by The Economist |
...all this presents a fantastic business opportunity for those Asian countries, principally Thailand, Singapore and India, which have excellent private hospitals that are used to treating foreigners and where costs are a fraction of those in rich countries. “Medical tourism” is booming as patients look abroad for cheap, fast treatment, often combined with a holiday afterwards..... Read more.
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Patient numbers for the Bangkok Hospital |
Today we received the latest e-digest from the Bangkok Medical Center. It has a few interesting overall patient numbers and the number of foreigners who seek treatment at their hospitals in Thailand. The Bangkok Medical Center belongs, like the Bangkok Hospital, the Samitivej and the Bangkok Nursing Home to the - get ready for a monster name - Bangkok Dusit Medical Services Public Co. Ltd, which is as a group, bigger than the Bumrungrad group of hospitals.... Read more. |