Hospitals

Nobody plans a hospital into a holiday, which is exactly why this section exists. A scooter slide on a wet corner, a bad prawn, a fever that will not break, a child with an ear infection on day two of a three-week trip — when it happens you want the nearest good hospital, its phone number and a map, not a page of search results full of clinics that closed years ago.

Each city page lists that city’s major hospitals, public and private, with the type, approximate size, street address, telephone numbers, website and a one-tap Google Maps link. Each hospital then has a page of its own for the detail that matters once you are actually going: what it is known for, who it suits, what it costs and how to reach it. The details are checked against each hospital’s own website, but hospitals move switchboards and change names — if a number does not answer, use the emergency line for the country in the table below.

Browse by country and city

All hospitals

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Phuket and Phi Phi, Thailand

Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, Thailand

Krabi, Ao Nang and Koh Lanta, Thailand

Chiang Rai, Thailand

Pattaya, Thailand

Emergency numbers by country

Public or private?

Every country in this section runs a public system and a private one, and the same trade-off holds across the region. Public hospitals are far cheaper and are often the biggest and best-equipped for serious trauma, but they are crowded, slow and conducted in the local language. Private hospitals in the tourist cities — Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Bali, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Taipei, Tokyo — speak English, move quickly and know how to deal with a travel insurer. With insurance, go private; without it, public; in a life-threatening emergency, the nearest emergency room of either kind, or the ambulance number below.

Before you need a hospital

Buy travel insurance that covers medical evacuation and save its 24-hour assistance number in your phone. Photograph your passport and your policy. Carry a list of any medication you take, with the generic names, and of any allergies. Keep your hotel’s address in the local script somewhere you can show a driver. Learn the ambulance number of the country you are in from the table above — it is not the same everywhere. And if you rent a scooter, hold a real motorcycle licence and wear the helmet: a motorbike is the single most common reason a traveller ends up on one of these pages, and an unlicensed rider is usually uninsured.

How to use these pages

Each city page lists its major hospitals largest-first with the type, approximate bed count, address, telephone, website and a Google Maps link, and every hospital has a page of its own. Figures are approximate and checked against each hospital’s own website; we do not publish ratings, because we have not been treated there. This is travel information, not medical advice. In an emergency, call the number in the table — not us.

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Travel information, not medical advice.

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