Woman cries foul as government hospital shuns Iranian boyfriend
A woman’s complaint to reporters that her boyfriend had been turned away from a Pattaya hospital’s emergency unit probably had nothing to do with him being Iranian.
Rather, it was because he was seeking treatment for an earache at an hour when emergency rooms typically only accept accident trauma victims.
But Pornthida Thundee, 25, also complained that the doctor on duty demonstrated no “medical ethics” in the way he spoke to her and her boyfriend, Forghani Mohammadhassan, 28, when they arrived at about midnight Sunday at the hospital in Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district.
Pornthida said the doctor, on learning the man had an earache, “asked me if my boyfriend was about to die”.
She quoted his as pointing out it was an “accident room” and telling her to use the Internet to learn what accident rooms are for.
The man was given an appointment the next morning, but Pornthida decided to take him to a different hospital.
It is common practice for government hospitals to turn away non-emergency outpatients who arrive outside government office hours and on public holidays and weekends.