Care Home in Thailand

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

BTW, he does pay tax here!!

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

"Care Resort Chaing Mai is run by Peter Brown, a businessman from Manchester who decided to adapt his hotel resort to offer care for the elderly after removing his elderly mother from her UK care home. There he said, he found that staff were checking in on her via a tannoy system and he found several days meals still covered in cling film. I knew I could do better, he says, I wanted to create something that wouldnt look, feel or smell like a care home. I dont have patients, I have guests. My focus is to keep people safe and happy. His resort is one of several that have sprung up in the mountainous north of Thailand, most catering for elderly Europeans and Americans, sometimes along with their healthy partners offering high quality care with high staff-to-guest ratios".

Barmyoldbat yes, but...... You are talking about older people who are stil reasonably fit and able to look after themselves and their affairs.

What is being talked about is Local Authorities sending people to Thailand to reduce their care costs. These people will have multiple disabilities, the majority of them mental problems. Most with dementia - and that is a very different thing. Most will be entirely financed by Local authorities and most will be entirely at the mercy of the care the care home chooses to give.

Now we all know just how dreadful the care has been in some homes in the UK - and that is when families have been visiting regularly and inspections can be arranged at very short notice - and this is a continuing problem.

How on earth will LA.s manage to monitor what is happening 6,000 miles away. If they keep a monitoring team there, that will multiply costs. These residents will not be the kind who can make complaints of there own. There will be no family visits, how much more unprotected will be those without family. And how soon will it be before the LA is trying to cut costs, limiting how much they will pay for home care, medical care etc etc?

As most will be LA funded and presumable from families that are more likely to also have lower incomes, even if they are average or above average, how often are they going to be able to afford to fly to Thailand to visit their relative.

Remember one of the most important things with caring for those with dementia is keeping them, as far as possible in familar surroundings and talking about familiar things, with people who share the same experience. How on earth can that be replicated in a country a long way away, with little familiarity with the lives of the residents?

Sorry once again done this without glasses on, on my phone and while moving

Many older people live inThailand and there is an ex pats insurance scheme. Treatment is chEap, Mr B operation cost $nearly 2000 dollars and that included a weeks stay in an apartment in the hospital, all meals and physio. Afterwards physo continued at $12.50. Even a stay in ICU is not over expensive.. if you look at what you save on care costs, then you can afford either the treatment or insurance. Also to buy medication is really cheap. Thailand and Malaysia are encouraging expats and have favourable terms.

Hetty58
How true with not being able to understand.
I went to look at a BUPA home when looking for my Mother in law.
The reception area was magnificent. We were invited to sit and have tea and biscuits with the best China ?
Then I asked the manager to see my mother in laws room and the public area. We walked into hell, I’m not exaggerating. There were at least 2 men in a distressed state in nappies.
The lounge could have been a canteen in a bus station.
I reported them.

These homes have been up and running for some time - I heard a radio programme a couple of years ago.

There's even a list on the Foreign Office section of the UK government website

Thailand

DH has had to pay £500 for a year's travel insurance, no more than 90 days out of the country, incuding a one week cruise. He has had a heart bypass surgery and a damaged lung following an infection.

Many old and frail people have multiple medical problems requiring constant medical attention, so health insurance could be £3,000 a year or more. Added on to care costs. I think this is someone young's big bright idea, they should be taken outside to make a reality check.

The recent r4 programme about this mentioned earlier was about this increasingly popular way of getting quality but much less expensive care was interesting but personally I would not want to be so far away.
Family visits would be few and far between. The owner was British the staff very kind but there would be little oversight and reassurance that the resident wasn’t happy or there were problems.

Barmeyoldbat

I don't think we assume that but the medical insurance for older people with underlying health conditions will be huge.

Private healthcare overseas can be absolutely wonderful but the cost is high. The probability of anyone needing care is high and will be reflected in the cost.

I can vouch that the medical treatment in Thailand and Chang Mia is excellent. Mr Barney injured his knee and needed an operation, he saw.the Dr on Tuesday evening . had an MRI scan and an operation on Saturday followed by physio. Why do we think we are the only country to have decent medical facilities. As for a Care Home mr B and I have both said that is where we will go. There are enough ex pats living in Chiangmai Mia to be able to mix with your own kind if that’s what you wants

Maybe I'll book this in advance - at least there's a frequent change of scenery:

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-22/for-61-000-spend-most-of-the-year-on-a-cruise-around-the-world

I wouldn’t send anyone . I would go and have a look via taking a holiday. May be great if you are able bodied and see this as an alternative but my family craved our visits when they eventually went into care homes . Our weekly visits armed with photo albums , chocolates and flowers made them feel needed . I would feel abandoned if I was dumped thousands of miles away with no visitors and no contacts . I can see the other side to this though.

My son worked for a few years on cruise ships. It was an American cruise ship and was often full of elderly people who were almost on permanent cruises. Most were not frail or needed extra care but were enjoying retirement, probably quite wealthy. Very popular were the repositioning cruises, from America to Europe, America to Australia or Australia to Far East. Long cruises no stops but very cheap.