THESTUDY OF GOVERNMENTPOLICIES TOWARDS MEDICAL TOURISM DURING COVID-19PANDEMIC IN THAILAND: CASESTUDY OF ALTERNATIVE HOSPITAL QUARANTINE

Abstract

This research aimed to 1) study government policies towards medical tourism during COVID-19
pandemic related travelling to Thailand of foreigners to receive medical treatment by the mechanism of
Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations, B.E. 2548 (2005) under the series
orders of the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) and Emergency Operations Centre of
the Ministry of Public Health (EOC) 2) analyse components of measures, criteria and working systems of
Alternative Hospital Quarantine Facilities (AHQ) 3) analyse the achievement of Alternative Hospital
Quarantine Facilities (AHQ) after opening the system officially 4) seek quality measures of Alternative
Hospital Quarantine Facilities (AHQ) to prepare for reopening the country after the pandemic is eased.
This study was documentary research whose methods were searching, analysing and synthesising the
data on components and main ideas of legal official documents, series of documents and forms that
were approved to use, publicised and officially reported to organizations according to working systems.

The research’s findings suggested that Thai government took measures to prevent COVID-19 in
order to support medical tourism, especially receiving medical services of foreigners. The main laws
included the series of Orders of the Centre for the Administration of the Situation due to the Outbreak
of the Communicable Disease Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), Item 1 entry into the Kingdom (10) Non-Thai
nationals who need to receive medical treatment in Thailand, including their accompanying persons,
except for treatment for COVID-19, entering the Kingdom by air. The accompanying persons shall be
limited to no more than 3 persons and shall be quarantined in the same hospital, and the period of their
stay in the Kingdom shall be no less than 14 days. Moreover, the government took other COVID-19
prevention measures included pre-arrival, arrival and departure measures. The above research findings
are in line with international measures designed to control and prevent COVID-19 pandemic for traveling
to receive medical treatment of foreigners during normal situation. The related laws were as follows: 1)
Immigration Act, B.E. 2522 (1979), which specified nationalities and criteria for foreigners entering the
Kingdom, and 2) Sanatorium Act, B.E. 2541 (1998), which formulated criteria and guidelines for establishing
overnight sanatoriums and non-overnight ones. However, it was found that most of the patients preferred
to travel by air during the situation of COVID-19 that travelling channels were partially closed, and
hospitals that were ready to provide services to foreigners were located in Bangkok whose number of
private hospitals is highest in Thailand. Alternative Hospital Quarantine facilities adjusted themselves in
accordance with government measures. In addition, the government was prepared to ease measures on
entering the Kingdom, for example, issuing Sandbox measure in leading tourist provinces including
measures on pre-arrival, arrival and departure. It was found that the number of days for quarantine was
reduced if the travellers were vaccinated.