Thailand Medical News Brief Overview On Thailand’s Medical And Healthcare Outlook, and Prospects For 2020
Source: Thailand Medical News Jan 01, 2020 4 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 9 hours, 2 minutes ago
2020 will herald a new period of increased
health and
medical incidences in
Thailand as a whole and this might seem contradictory to the fact that the amount of medical advances, and even high tech such as AI etc coming on board into the
medical industry.
With the emergence of the local “lazy economy” due to the tech and startup invasion, not only will food delivery, online shopping and other so called convenient apps and platforms contribute negatively to a healthy lifestyle, but we can also expect to see more casualties across the medical spectrum from more people developing chronic diseases to younger populations developing disease that were once reserved only for the elderly. Already the WHO has warned that more and more people are becoming less physically active and even more alarming is the fact that even children and teens are becoming less and less physically active.
The tech and social media platforms are also contributing heavily to distorted medical facts online coupled with tons of fake medical news. An inhouse study by the team from
Thailand Medical News has revealed than there are more than 3,580 facebook medical and health groups that are giving out fake and dangerous medical advice or sharing the most outrageous medical advice. We believe that there is actually much more than just that but due to lack of resources, those are the pages and groups that we have uncovered. We have tried reaching out to facebook operations in
Thailand, Singapore and also US about this and ways that we could collaborate to overcome this but have met with no answers from facebook. We are now rallying different support from legal teams across the world armed with the data that we have procured and might have to resort to something else more drastic in 2020 to get their attention.
On various ecommerce platforms, we now have lots of fake supplements, fake medicines, inferior
medical devices, and other kinds of medical and
health products being sold online even on so called prestigious platforms, all detrimental to people’s
health. While the
health and police authorities are trying their best to curtail all these, they too are limited by manpower and budget constraints.
In terms of
medical and
health apps, there are now have more than 115,000 so called
medical and
healthcare apps that can be downloaded from apple store, google play store and even amazon and other app sites and only less than 3 percent of these apps are credible and from reputed
medical institutions with medical doctors and researchers involved in the data and functionality for these apps. The rest have never passed any regulatory controls and contain unreliable data or functionality. Companies like Apple, Goggle and Amazon should set better standards and also regulate all online
medical and
healthcare apps.
On the
g>clinics and hospitals front, there are more and more unethical and greedy doctors providing unapproved medical protocols especially in the area of aesthetics, beauty, weight loss, anti-aging, wellness, stem cells etc. There has been so many wellness clinics and centres springing up all over the country along with many new treatment protocols that have not been approved by the medical industry. The only accredited Wellness Centre in Thailand so far that has been offers only medically accepted therapies and that too at extremely reasonable rates and with health care professionals that have been trained in the respective disciplines is VitalLife Center.
We are also finding more pesticides, chemical, antibiotics, GMOs etc entering our foodchain. Also not just processed foods and ultraprocessed foods are creeping its way into Thai dietary habits, but food additives and processed foods are now finding its way into the ingredient lists of many restaurants and even street food vendors.
Thais changing dietary habits such as daily coffees from coffee chains laden with sugar and steamed milk, the increasing consumption of processed foods from instant noodles, pastas, confectionary items etc are all going to make them pay dearly eventually in terms of their health. Diabetes, cardiovascular problems and also cancer will emerge more among the local populations and diseases that were once only predominat in the Western societies are now also emerging more in Thailand such as obesity, dementia, alzheimer, parkinsons and autoimmune diseases.
In terms of lifestyles, the more liberal moral attitudes and the influence of Western moral values and also the easy availability of porn and instant hookup dating sites are now leading to more and more casual sex in both the Thai heterosexual and gay societies. Coupled with their stubbornness to practice sex, we can expect to see just like in the West, a surge of various sexually transmitted diseases and also resistant strains emerging. Also we can expect to see more cancers due to sexually transmitted diseases such as HPV and HIV emerging among the younger populations. There is no policies of promoting HPV vaccination in Thailand at the moment among children for future safety.
The Thai mentality of also not seeing a doctor for ‘minor illness or symptoms’ but rather self-treating by buying the wrong drugs from pharmacies especially antibiotics will lead to more drug resistant cases emerging in this country.
Despite having more than 55 million so called active social media users in Thailand and also a population that has the among the highest rates of internet penetration in the world, unfortunately about 95% of Thais and these internet users are basically of a lower intellectual background and are only into garbage internet contents such as shitty Korean pop stars, porn, stupid celebrity gossips, crime news and more into promoting or selling themselves online! There is total lack of intellectual engagement including accessing proper medical and health information online to better protect themselves and prevent any medical conditions.
The current ongoing economic slowdown which is expected to worsen in 2020 due to stupid mismanagement will see more people losing their jobs and greater job insecurity. Many SMEs and microbusinesses are expected to go out of business and many local Thai startups will also simply collapse. On the other hand, foreign startups such as those from Indonesia, Singapore and elsewhere and foreign companies especially from China will start to enter Thailand more and more and subtly displace local Thais, again due to stupid mismanagement. This will lead locals developing mental issues and stress which can also aggravate other medical conditions.
On the medical tourism front, again due to stupid mismanagement, the rapidly appreciating Baht will make it less attractive for medical tourism and already many private hospitals have been increasing their rates for various medical procedures, room rates etc gradually pricing themselves out of the market. The lack of proper English medical marketing staff with medical knowledge will also put their competitors at an advantage. Already in the once leading markets that were supplying lots of medical tourists ie the Middle East, there is lots of new initiatives by the local governments there to spruce up their own medical industry by investing in talent from the US and India and its only a matter of time before we see lesser patients form these markets. Plans to focus on the Chinese market is laughable as most hospitals have not even spent research into truly understanding the Chinese markets and mindset.
In terms of medical startups and innovations and also the medical device segments, we will as usual hear more hot air from various agencies and also private entities but in reality most will go nowhere. Already we have seen so many so called medical startups that have gone into a state of ‘oblivion!’ The lack of English skills, strategic marketing and communications skills are among some of the reasons. Furthermore, many Thai startups, research and innovations are not real innovations but simply copied or “reengineered” models taken from elsewhere. Good news is that many foreign entities are now setting operations in Thailand to keep a look out for copied or infringed works for legal suits and this should be something of a fun to look out for in 2020.
Another anticipated event is the liberalization of Kratom and Cannabis as the medical industry could make a killing from this in a few years time when Thailand starts having its own opioid crisis just like in the US at the moment but due to a different reason and scale!
In the public healthcare sector, we expect with the economic crisis, lack of money and the universal healthcare system which is being exploited by some, a depreciation and worsening in the medical services being offered. Its actually stupid to use tax payers money to pay for medical services for people who do not attempt to prevent or manage their own health conditions in a proper and responsible way, for example should tax payers money be used to pay for medical services for people who can afford to buy cups of unhealthy coffee from an international chain every day or for a guy who pays for a prostitute but does not practice safe sex or for gays who are sexually promiscuous and not practicing safe sex. Yes there is should be a true safety net for the poor but not for those that are not responsible for their own health!
We at Thailand Medical News may sound pessimistic and it’s a shame as Thailand can truly be a medical and healthcare hub and showcase in the world but the attitude of officials, hospital owners, certain doctors and industry leaders and the attitude of the local people are simply destroying it day by day.
