Hua Hin Hospital sued for overcharging foreigners

PHOTO: Kapook, Channel 3

A Dutch man is suing the Hua Hin Hospital for overcharging foreigners and tourists. In a novel suit, the litigant says Thai citizen are charged 50 baht for an appointment with the doctor, but foreigners are being charged 300 baht.

50 year old Erwin Robert Bucher claims this is a form of “corruption”.

Channel 3 ran the story on July 21. Erwin took his complaint to the Hua Hin Police informing that he wants to sue the Hua Hin Hospital for overcharging foreigners. He claims there are no regulations established by the Thai Ministry of Health which allows for a difference in hospital fees for foreigners.

He explained in the TV report that he had had bladder cancer since 2015 and visits the hospital every 3 months, a distance of 200 kilometres from where he lives.

He says he’s paid over 300,000 baht cash to the hospital. over four years of visits. He says he has no issue with paying the fees but resents the additional extra 300 baht charged just because he is a foreigner.

He claims that this is different from other government hospitals that only charge 50 baht for foreigners and that the Hua Hin Hospital came up with the additional fee on their own.

The hospital says they needed to add 15% and 300 THB as a service fee for foreigners. Erwin says he’s now paid 12,746 baht over the years for this extra charge and he wants the money back.

Erwin has filed other reports in the past to the Ministry of Health and the Damrongdhama Centre (for consumer complaints), but the issues bounce back and forth.

Erwin is a retired railway engineer from the Netherlands. He currently looks after goats with his Thai wife in the region.

SOURCE: thairesidents.com