Hospitals in Mae Hong Son and Pai

Mae Hong Son is one of the most thinly populated provinces in Thailand and one of the slowest to move around: a long horseshoe of mountain road along the Myanmar border, with the provincial town at one end, Pai at the other and two small towns in between. Its medicine is sized for that. There are four Ministry of Public Health hospitals on the loop — the 154-bed provincial hospital in Mae Hong Son town and district hospitals at Pai, Khun Yuam and Mae Sariang — and there is no private hospital anywhere in the province. Most visitors never leave Pai, whose hospital is a small district one that patches up a great many scooter injuries and sends the worst of them on to Chiang Mai.

This page lists all four with the practical detail: what kind of hospital it is, where it is, how to call it and how to find it on a map. Every name opens a full page on that hospital. Details were checked in September 2026 against Thailand’s National Health Security Office register and, where a hospital has a working website, against the hospital itself. Switchboards in small provinces change and a single line can go unanswered at night, so if a number fails, call 1669.

The 4 at a glance

Bed counts are approximate. Tap a name for the full page.

The hospitals

Which hospital should I go to?

For anything serious — a head injury, chest pain, a bad fracture, a birth going wrong — the answer in this province is Srisangwan Hospital in Mae Hong Son town, the 154-bed provincial hospital and the only one here with the departments to keep a patient rather than pass one on. If you are in Pai, which is where most visitors are, start at Pai Hospital: it is minutes from the walking street and can clean, stitch and splint most of what a scooter does to a person. On the southern half of the loop, Mae Sariang Hospital is the larger district hospital and Khun Yuam Hospital the one you pass on Highway 108 between it and the provincial town. There is no private option anywhere in the province; the nearest private hospitals are in Chiang Mai.

What will it cost?

There is only one tier here, and it is the cheap one. Thai public hospitals charge foreigners more than they charge Thai citizens, but a consultation with tests and medicine at any of these four still costs a fraction of a private outpatient visit in Chiang Mai or Bangkok, and even an admission is affordable by Western standards. Pay at the cashier before you leave, in cash or by card. The expense that catches people out is not the treatment but the journey: a transfer by ambulance to Chiang Mai is charged too, and if you want to be moved to a private hospital there rather than the public one, or moved by air, the bill stops being a Thai public-hospital bill and becomes a serious sum. Ask what a transfer will cost before you agree to it.

Insurance, deposits and paperwork

Insurers almost never direct-bill a Thai public hospital, so assume pay-and-claim at all four: settle at the cashier, then claim at home. Ask for an itemised receipt and an English-language medical certificate before you leave — both are routine requests, but you have to make them, and chasing them later from another country is miserable. Carry your passport. After a road accident bring the rental agreement and your driving licence as well: the compulsory motor insurance on a rented scooter covers some injury costs, but only for a rider licensed to be on it. If you are about to be transferred to Chiang Mai and there is time, phone your policy’s assistance line first — it can name the hospital it will pay for and open the claim before you arrive.

Getting there and ambulances

The national ambulance number is 1669: free, nationwide, and it takes you to the nearest appropriate hospital. In this province that word nearest is doing a lot of work. The loop is a single mountain road, so a crew may be a long way off and the drive is slow whichever direction it comes from; give the operator a landmark, a kilometre marker or a pinned location rather than a road name. Pai and Mae Hong Son town both have small airports, but the flights are few and the schedules change, so never plan a medical evacuation around one. For anything that can wait, a songthaew or a hired car is the way to a hospital; an injured person does not belong on the back of a motorbike.

Motorbikes and the Loop

The road that brings people here is the thing that hurts them. The Mae Hong Son loop is famous for its 1,864 curves, and the Chiang Mai–Pai leg is the tightest of it: switchback after switchback, gravel washed across the apex, sand at the edges, dogs, and a long descent into Pai taken by riders who hired a scooter that morning. Pai Hospital sees the result all season — gravel rash, burnt calves from the exhaust, broken collarbones and wrists. It can clean a wound, stitch it, splint a limb and watch you overnight. What it cannot do is major surgery or a serious head injury; those are stabilised and driven to Mae Hong Son town or Chiang Mai. Wear a helmet, cover your arms and legs, and make sure your licence actually covers a motorcycle — without it the compulsory motor insurance and most travel policies will not pay, and you fund the transfer yourself.

Beyond Mae Hong Son

Everything the province cannot handle goes to Chiang Mai, three to four hours from Pai by road and longer from the southern towns. The big public referral hospital is Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai, the university hospital, which takes the most complicated cases in the north; on the private side, Chiang Mai Ram (+66 52 004 699) and Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai (+66 52 089 888) are the two most travellers and insurers use, and both have English-speaking international desks. Our Chiang Mai hospitals page has the addresses and the rest of the numbers. If you know you are heading there under your own steam rather than in an ambulance, ring ahead: it saves an hour at the door.

Pharmacies

For a cold, a stomach upset, an infected graze or a hangover you do not need a hospital. Pai has several pharmacies along the walking street and the main road, and Mae Hong Son town has more; Khun Yuam and Mae Sariang have a few between them, and out on the loop itself there may be none for an hour of driving, so carry a small kit with dressings, antiseptic and any prescription medicine you take. Thai pharmacies sell most everyday medicines over the counter and a licensed pharmacist will usually speak enough English to advise. See a doctor rather than a pharmacist if a fever lasts more than a couple of days, and if you have asthma be aware that the burning season in the early months of the year fills these valleys with smoke.

Mae Hong Son travel guide / Pai tourist map / Hospitals in Chiang Mai / Thailand visa guide / Thailand destinations / Hospitals in Thailand / Hospitals in Thailand / All hospitals

Travel information, not medical advice.

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