Care Home in Thailand

Thailand and Malaysia are encouraging expats and have favourable terms.
Even after spending a lot of time in the tropics I'm still not good with heat and humidity.

Perhaps I'll give it a miss.

The Real Marigold Hotel never appealed to me.
Even Miriam Margolyes preferred to locate to the more temperate NSW!

I see no reason why older people might not choose to retire to Thailand, in the same way people retire to Spain, France or any other country.

However, my experience, from friends and family, is that many of them return home around the age of 80 to be nearer to family and to come back to the NHS and a medical system they are familiar with and staff who speak fluent English.

Many of those who stay on regardless have lots of problems especially, when they are alone after their partners die and funds run low, as help for the elderly is very different in other countries and families are expected to take far more responsibility for frail and elderly family members.

I am sure the local authorities would not send people to care homes in Thailand without arranging medical care. Also read in the Guardian that the care home also included medical care. My experience of Thailand. Is that the elderly are respected and treated far better than those o ver here. The elderly go straight to the front of toilet queues and fast tracked at many places, inclusding the Airport.

Barmyoldbat yes, the LA would foot all the medical bills, but these make the homes more expensive. Would the home's medical provision pay for heart or cancer surgery or other medical intervention - chemotherapy or radiotherapy if needed?

They may treat old people with respect, but what about the severely demented. who would be unlikely to leave the home to find out how nice the locals were.

LAs only pay for residential care when people really are totally beyond being supported at home. the people sent there would mainly have dementia. I spent 14 years responsble for relations staying in a variety of care homes in the UK and saw how the vast majority of residents had mental not physical problems. I felt very sorry for the occasional physically disabled mentally sound people I met in care. The often the only one, dependent on the carers for any kind of rational conversation.

In my county, many LA care homes have been demolished and rebuilt because they were built 50 years ago or more when the majority of residents were mentally sound, but physically disabled and were just not suitable for today's residents, most of whom have dementia and are 10 or 15 years odler than in the past and often physically very frail.

I wonder whether many of the people whose care is paid for by LAs could even cope with the long airflight on an ordinary passenger plane.

I'd have to visit Koh Samui while I was there Now that's a real holiday place, beautiful.

My bil lives in Thailand and comes here for medical treatment - Nuff said!!

BTW, he does pay tax here!!

Kitty - people who have work contracts in these countries usually have free health care included.
Whether this would cover older family members is doubtful.
Our other son, in SE India, has various benefits in his contract - eg free health provision, free education for their children, free transport back to UK (conditions) etc

It's not the cost of health care but the availability and quality.

DD lives in Chiangmai and finds the healthcare excellent and cheap. She says when we get decrepit we can go and live there and she’ll find a nurse for us. Thais are used to looking after aged family members so she reckons we could expect to be well cared for. One minus point - if you put all your money in a Thai bank you won’t be able to take it back out of the country if you change your mind.

Calistemon

You have to be fairly fit to go on a cruise.

It's all go!

Evidently not on the river cruise a brother and SiL did a couple of years ago.
Brother said never again, everywhere he went on the ship, there were doddery old things tottering along with sticks, and holding him up.

(Not that he’s prone to gross exaggeration or anything. ?)
But he’s never mentioned any such thing after the many sea cruises they’ve been on. Worst of those was the ship losing power in a bad storm in the Black Sea - even my generally unperturbable Dbro said it was bicycle-clips time.

I imagine it would be very confusing for someone who had, or developed, dementia to be so far away from familiar surroundings and people whose first language is English. Quite apart from the difficulties for family accessing money transferred to a Thai bank account when their loved one dies and the expense of repatriation should they wish to be buried here. It might be a lovely place for a holiday but that’s all as far as I’m concerned!