Accident Insurance Thailand

Sinister and unexplained deaths in Chiang Mai are raising a lot of eyebrows in this somewhat lovely city in the North West of Thailand. Miriam Saraya Vorster 33 was a Tourist guide from the US died of what allegedly was food poisoning. She was not the first to die at the Down Town Inn there were 4 more to follow.

This reads more like a Detective crime than a true life blog. Two more residents of the same hotel became severely ill and it was nearly fatal.

George and Eileen Everitt British Pensioners from Boston in Linconshire were found dead on February 19^th whilst on holiday, they apparently died within hours of one another. They were 78 and 73 years old their family were said to be stunned as there was no history of heart disease between them and they were very active people.

All these cases are being investigated but to what extent, we are never sure and heart attacks are often blamed on many healthy people’s demise. Although there are few definitive accounts of the number of unexplained deaths in Thailand many have put it at around 50 on the island of Phuket alone over the last eight months. The authority’s initial reports on these deaths have yet to be contested by the families and their embassies but it strikes us as slightly suspicious.

Thailand’s tourist industry is worth around 19 Billion USD at present around 7% of Gross Domestic Product, The government has set a strong desire to increase this revenue to around 11% of GDP at around 30 billion, so there is a strong desire by the Thais to keep this kind of information under control. And there is no public data available on the description and the number of fatalities amongst visiting nationals.

In Phuket the police have reported the tourist deaths from December 2009 to August 2010 as:

3 by criminal damage

15 Heart attacks

5 suicides

The rest: Traffic accidents/ drowning/electrocution

(I never saw any of that in the brochure ED)

Koh Phi Phi an idyllic island south of Thailand saw sinister incidents in 2007 when a healthy 27 US year old lady died at a Hotel, and her boyfriend just survived. They blamed the Air conditioning. The following day two ladies from Norway fell ill and one 22 year old died and her friend barely survived.

The Down Town Inn in Chiang Mai however is broiled in controversy as not one other person got sick from the food that day, and food poisoning is being ruled out, so the investigation continues whilst the authorities try to play it down. Spider Bites, deliberate poisoning, and business revenge on the hotel has not been ruled out either.

These cases will probably dent the tourism industry a little, and hopefully the families were adequately covered in their travel insurance, it will not bring a priceless family member back but it will cover some costs of repatriation, autopsy costs etc whilst the Tourism authority does all it can to play it down, but if it was your family would you not want answers??