US Alzheimer's patient: Goodbye Thailand - it was nice knowing you

[webfact]

US Alzheimer's patient: Goodbye Thailand - it was nice knowing you

 

 

The daughter of the Alzheimer's patient who claimed that her 77 year old mother had been forced out of Thailand by new immigration rules has sent Thaivisa pictures of their impending departure. 

 

Deanna Denis, 57, was seen at the airport and on the plane with her mother Anna Padgett. 

 

Some people online had claimed that the story was a publicity stunt.

 

 

Mother and daughter left Chiang Mai bound for Bangkok early this morning and were due to fly to Manila after a layover.

 

The family has said that Thai financial requirements - notably having to have 800,000 baht kept in the bank for their mother - had forced them to seek care in Manila. 

 

This is available for $1,000 a month compared to nearly $3,000 in Thailand and $10,000 back at home in Atlanta, the family told Thaivisa. 

 

 

Mrs Denis - who lives in Nakorn Sri Thammarat in southern Thailand - said: 

 

"Mum is doing OK. She keeps forgetting who I am. But we must live completely in the moment with Alzheimer's, and stay happy."

 

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[rabas]

Looks like she knows exactly who to blame.

[Isaanbiker]

The family has said that Thai financial requirements - notably having to have 800,000 baht kept in the bank for their mother - had forced them to seek care in Manila. 

 

   No Thai requirement whatsoever had forced them to seek care in Manila. Nobody has forced them to do so. 

[Kasane]

The patient needs to be on Medicaid. She paid all her life for Medicare, now that she is ill US don't want to care for its citizen who is now terminally ill. Reminds me of unscrupulous insurance companies who drop coverage when the patient really needs them. 

[Gecko123]

I hope things work out. Your mom's lucky to have you as a daughter.

[SheungWan]

Since the stated care costs are 1/3 in Phillipines, the move seems a reasonable one irrespective of the immigration requirement. PS, is it really $3k a month in Thailand? Seems a lot.

[RandolphGB]

They can't / don't want to submit the required deposit for the visa. The logical step then is to leave. Am I missing something?

[DogNo1]

Good on you Deanna!  I hope that my daughter will be as caring as you if I develop Alzheimer’s.  BTW, decent care for stroke or Alzheimer’s patients is really not available under Medicaid in the USA.  You must pay more than Medicaid will reimburse a nursing home to get really decent care.  I imagine that Deanna checked that out as an option early on in her mother’s Alzheimer’s and rejected it.  I hope that she will keep us posted.  Knowing how the PI care works out will be of interest to me.

 

 

 

 

 

[cardinalblue]

Kasane

 

Do you wish to support your claim that usa doesn’t want to care for her? if she did the proper paper work and qualifies, why wouldn’t she be in the system?

 

my friends who complain about many things but one thing they don’t complain about is US Medicare coverage, As long as you follow their rules and willing to fork out the small amount of money for supplemental part B.....

 

most complainers are due to being non compliant with the regulations...

[donnacha]

According to her own words in the main thread on this story, she is merely flying over to put her mum into a Manila care home that costs a third of what the Chiang Mai one did, and then flying back to Thailand.

She and her husband will continue to live in Thailand:
 

Quote

"We love Thailand and we don't want her to go but we now have no choice. We have been forced out by the new rules and we may go to live in the Philippines ourselves in the future". 

So, saying they have been "forced out" but actually staying in Thailand for now, with a vague threat that they may leave at some point in the future.

This is a tragic situation for any family, but I am not sure that dumping mum in the cheapest care home in the world and then jetting back to Thailand really qualifies her for a Daughter of the Year award.

Certainly, it is ungracious to blame Thailand for finally enforcing a fairly reasonable law - designed to prevent Thailand getting stuck with medical care and end-of-life costs of the elderly from rich countries - that they were previously circumventing (with embassy letters as proof of income instead of a bank deposit).

They could actually continue circumventing the bank deposit requirement by paying an agent $600 per year to pay off the right people, not a huge amount in return for keeping your mother in the same country as you, but this clearly has more to do with saving nearly $2,000 per month on care costs.

That is a tough decision for any family, and the sudden enforcing of the income rules has caused problems for many who were circumventing them. That has no doubt contributed to the hysteria around this story, but let's stop pretending that their mother has been "forced out" by the Thais.

 

[Isaanbiker]

13 hours ago, DogNo1 said:

Good on you Deanna!  I hope that my daughter will be as caring as you if I develop Alzheimer’s.  BTW, decent care for stroke or Alzheimer’s patients is really not available under Medicaid in the USA.  You must pay more than Medicaid will reimburse a nursing home to get really decent care.  I imagine that Deanna checked that out as an option early on in her mother’s Alzheimer’s and rejected it.  I hope that she will keep us posted.  Knowing how the PI care works out will be of interest to me.

 

 

 

 

 

My mom's somewhere in heaven, but I'd never ever have sent her to the Phillippines and go back home where I believe I belong to. 

They just got rid of her, that's all. 

 

Healthcare in the Philippines isn't what I'd want for my mother. https://borgenproject.org/healthcare-in-the-philippines/

 

 

[Blackheart1916]

They can't meet the regulations in Thailand, they are sending the mother to where care is 1/3 the price, what's the drama? Mum won't care, she won 't know where she is.

[suzannegoh]

15 hours ago, Kasane said:

The patient needs to be on Medicaid. She paid all her life for Medicare, now that she is ill US don't want to care for its citizen who is now terminally ill. Reminds me of unscrupulous insurance companies who drop coverage when the patient really needs them. 

One problem in the States is that longterm healthcare in a "home" for Alzheimers patients is only covered by Medicaid and not by Medicare, and to qualify for Medicaid you need to be certifiably poor. So basically you need to completely drain your savings on mefical care or hide it away in a trust before the government would pay for it.

[wwest5829]

14 hours ago, SheungWan said:

Since the stated care costs are 1/3 in Phillipines, the move seems a reasonable one irrespective of the immigration requirement. PS, is it really $3k a month in Thailand? Seems a lot.

An earlier article cited that Thai Immigration refused to acknowledge the monthly healthcare cost of 86, 000 baht as meeting the income requirement. That seems to have played into the decision. We all know that a ruling like this can vary between different locations, even within one office. Sad...

[Crash999]

14 hours ago, SheungWan said:

Since the stated care costs are 1/3 in Phillipines, the move seems a reasonable one irrespective of the immigration requirement. PS, is it really $3k a month in Thailand? Seems a lot.

They’re going to be in for a surprise if they think costs in Manila are 1/3 that of Chiang Mai. 

 

You get what you pay for. 

[MRToMRT]

Makes me want to leave Thailand. Not because of the story (I sympathize greatly) but because of the sad reflection most of the posts so far in this thread are on the expats of Thailand.

[DingDongLing]

God Bless, Maybe it will be much better there.  You never know what can happen here tomorrow.  

[donnacha]

33 minutes ago, wwest5829 said:

An earlier article cited that Thai Immigration refused to acknowledge the monthly healthcare cost of 86, 000 baht as meeting the income requirement. That seems to have played into the decision. We all know that a ruling like this can vary between different locations, even within one office. Sad...

There was no "ruling". Money you have to pay for necessary care simply does not count as income.

The reason for the 800K bank deposit, or equivalent verified income, is to ensure that Thailand, a developing nation, does not get stuck paying for the considerable end-of-life costs of elderly people from rich countries.

Remember, for most people, the medical costs of their final month will be more than their medical costs for the entire life before that.

The 86K per month being spent on this unfortunate lady provided her with the special care that Alzheimer's requires. It does not cover the considerable cost of cardiac and other expensive operations that people often need as their body finally breaks down.

Sadly, this lies waiting for most of us at the end and, under current medical ethics, caregivers are obliged to do all they can to save your life unless you give very specific instructions that they must not.

Medical costs are lower in Thailand than America, but they are not nothing. $25K is actually a fairly low estimate. Just one cardiac operation would eat up most of that. You might need several. Emergency repatriation back to your home country could cost ten times that.

So, they are making sure you have that money stashed away, for your own emergency use. All poor countries should do this but, unlike Thailand, the Philippines are not in a strong enough position to insist upon it.

By leaving her in the Philippines, she is essentially getting that desperately poor country to pay her mother's end-of-life care. The care provided in a government hospital won't be great, healthcare in the Philippines is significantly worse than Thailand, but it will certainly drain resources away from sick Filipinos.

 

[DingDongLing]

2 minutes ago, MRToMRT said:

Makes me want to leave Thailand. Not because of the story (I sympathize greatly) but because of the sad reflection most of the posts so far in this thread are on the expats of Thailand.

Some members on this forum seem to be bitterly drunk the entire time shitposting and bashing on others. 

[TonyR101]

I have absolutely no sympathy whatever with this family.

The solution to the problem is simple - 

Place the 800,000 Baht in a Thai Bank savings account. Take mother home to Nakorn to live you. Spend $1000 of the current $3,000/month cost on keeping mother in the loving care of a Thai maid. Use the other $2,000/month to repay capital/loan costs on the 800,000 and in twelve months time the family has kept both mother and Thai Immigration happy, and as a bonus has amassed an 800,000 Baht nest egg in a Thai bank. 

[theonetrueaussie]

16 minutes ago, DingDongLing said:

Makes me want to leave Thailand. Not because of the story (I sympathize greatly) but because of the sad reflection most of the posts so far in this thread are on the expats of Thailand.

You must be new here, 90% of the posts on thaivisa are from grumpy old men hating on other grumpy old men and pretty much everything else they can hate on ????????????????????

[donnacha]

 

13 minutes ago, TonyR101 said:

Place the 800,000 Baht in a Thai Bank savings account. Take mother home to Nakorn to live you. Spend $1000 of the current $3,000/month cost on keeping mother in the loving care of a Thai maid. Use the other $2,000/month to repay capital/loan costs on the 800,000 and in twelve months time the family has kept both mother and Thai Immigration happy, and as a bonus has amassed an 800,000 Baht nest egg in a Thai bank. 

Yes, that would solidly solve the problem they claim Thailand is "forcing" upon them. They could even forego the 800K and pay just 20K per year to an agent. Problem solved for less than the cost of their flights to the Philippines.

What they have chosen to do instead has solved their real problem: they want to remain living in Thailand but they do not want to continue paying 85K per month for specialist care. Leaving mum in the Philippines saves them almost $2K per month.

Hopefully it won't make much difference to the old girl, and they no doubt have many other important things they can spent the money on. It just lacks class for them to play the victim card and pretend that this was not 100% their own decision. 

 

[SuwadeeS]

So many knucklehead comments here. Why the the most people are so blind to see and face the facts?

As a matter of fact, yes Thais are more cheating and dual pricing. Yes, actually its more expensive. Yes, if the world would knpw more facts about the real treatment of foreigner less people would spend their holiday and money here. 

Not only for the financial point also for the  educational point, the Philippines is far more educated than here. Further, the language barrier in Thailand is higher, because of the laziness of students. 

Go and ask real. Means go and talk to teachers, get some real feedback. Not the fake feedback. Thai students are lazy.... and so it continues as grown up. 

[Time Traveller]

 

 

1 hour ago, donnacha said:

According to her own words in the main thread on this story, she is merely flying over to put her mum into a Manila care home that costs a third of what the Chiang Mai one did, and then flying back to Thailand.

She and her husband will continue to live in Thailand:
 

So, saying they have been "forced out" but actually staying in Thailand for now, with a vague threat that they may leave at some point in the future.

This is a tragic situation for any family, but I am not sure that dumping mum in the cheapest care home in the world and then jetting back to Thailand really qualifies her for a Daughter of the Year award.

Certainly, it is ungracious to blame Thailand for finally enforcing a fairly reasonable law - designed to prevent Thailand getting stuck with medical care and end-of-life costs of the elderly from rich countries - that they were previously circumventing (with embassy letters as proof of income instead of a bank deposit).

They could actually continue circumventing the bank deposit requirement by paying an agent $600 per year to pay off the right people, not a huge amount in return for keeping your mother in the same country as you, but this clearly has more to do with saving nearly $2,000 per month on care costs.

That is a tough decision for any family, and the sudden enforcing of the income rules has caused problems for many who were circumventing them. That has no doubt contributed to the hysteria around this story, but let's stop pretending that their mother has been "forced out" by the Thais.

 

Not really sure what your point is. 

The family were paying the costs for their mother to live in Thailand legally AND receive medical treatment for many years. How is Thailand getting stuck with the medical care and end-of life-costs? 

 

And your suggestion of paying off someone to deliberately game the visa system. Really?

 

In case you haven't learnt the lesson here. Thailand only wants people to fit into their narrowly defined box of who is acceptable. If you're outside of that definition - under 50, income must come from working / over 50 retired income must come from government pension - then no flexibility, no commonsense understanding that you have other financial means. You're out.

 

You might wave your finger and point to the rules smugly, but in the last 25 years in Thailand I've seen the regulations change so much that those who were once welcomed, were later excluded. Just because you're fine and not affected by visa changes now, don't assume you won't be in the future.  

[newnative]

Daughter's milking this for all its worth.  Guess we'll get a 3rd story when they arrive in Manila, where she is dumping her Mom to be cared for at a third of the cost and she can get back to her early retirement in Thailand.

[Chazar]

1 hour ago, donnacha said:

This is a tragic situation for any family, but I am not sure that dumping mum in the cheapest care home in the world and then jetting back to Thailand really qualifies her for a Daughter of the Year award.

 Depends on how she is, maybe she doesn't remember very much now and sometimes doesn't even know who her daughter is in which case would she know or get upset at all.

Good luck to them.

[Chazar]

3 minutes ago, newnative said:

Daughter's milking this for all its worth.

I'd say its drawing attention to the new  rules which are badly thought out and  randomly interpreted anyway the immigration officer wants. They need to think this through way more than they have.

[Chazar]

13 minutes ago, donnacha said:

They could even forego the 800K and pay just 20K per year to an agent.

Has anyone actually  done this without the 800k  since the new laws were implemented as I was told by a friend they tried this and agents sad it's  now  impossible.

[Emdog]

18 minutes ago, theonetrueaussie said:

You must be new here, 90% of the posts on thaivisa are from grumpy old men hating on other grumpy old men and pretty much everything else they can hate on ????????????????????

I wish to take issue with your number. Detailed statistical analysis shows the number is no more than 75%. Perhaps 90% due to repetition and dual postings.

[sanuk711]

Throw Momma from the train,

should be blindly obvious to anyone reading this that they just don't want her living with them, although as pointed out you could set her up with outside care coming in for less then the Thai cost.

Daughter of the year-----you must be joking................