Visiting a Thai Hospital for a Quick Stitch-Up

It doesn’t look too bad from here, but trust me, once I opened up my fingers it was a whole different *faints*

Anyway, I clearly couldn’t continue riding so after showing up at the meeting point and announcing to my friends that the ride was off (I was the only one with the GPS route, you see), I got on the BTS (accompanied by my lovely, understanding friends) and headed to the closest hospital I knew – Bangkok Christian. I’ve been there before several times over the past years and while they’re not as slick or as moneyed at places like Bumrungrad or Samitivej, I’ve always found them to be friendly, competent and not too expensive.

Now this is the best part about medical care in Thailand: literally 10 minutes after walking in and showing my wound to the reception nurse (“What’s wrong? ARGH!”) I was laying down on a gurney with a nice nurse cleaning my hand. As I lay there, another nurse came and asked me if I had insurance (I do through work, BUPA) and took my insurance card and driver’s license. The doctor then came by, took a look, told me we’d have to do some stitches, and got to work. I took a picture and he seemed annoyed, so I stopped taking pictures of the man sticking needles into my body. As all this was going on, another nurse came by and told me I’d have to have a tetanus shot, which she administered quickly and painlessly.

Despite looking like he just came from an office meeting, my doc worked fast and painlessly. And hopefully well.

Once that was over, I was told to come back to the hospital in a week to get the stitches out, and the nurse began to wrap up the wound. This picture isn’t gross.

Bandaged up and ready for a round of golf!

Ten minutes later I was waiting to get some medicine and pay the cashier. She called my number and told me I’d have to take a week’s worth of anti-inflamatories and pain meds, and sent me to the cashier. I was hoping that the 5,000 baht ($150) OPD coverage on my BUPA card would cover the costs, but you never know with these things, maybe the doc that stitched me up was a super-celebrity surgeon or something. Once she handed me the bill, I couldn’t help but laugh at the total amount:

Not bad, considering.

So, with bandaged hand clutching bag of meds, I set off home to not ride my bike. Hours later there’s a bit of pain but not much, and I can still type although the range of motion on my right hand is limited. There’s also a bit of a pink hue to the bandage over the wound so I think it might still be bleeding a bit, so I might head back to the hospital tomorrow to get them to re-dress it.

Hopefully I can still make the ride planned for next week, but we shall see.