The Be Well Medical Center is pleased to announce the opening of their satellite clinic at Black Mountain with an opening event held on Friday 12 November, 2021.
The Mayor of Hua Hin, Mr. Nopporn Wutthikul, officially opened the clinic attended by local dignities, leading medical professionals from Bangkok and Hua Hin as well key business leaders.
After an introductory address by Haiko Emanuel, founder of Be Well, Mr Nopporn Wutthikul spoke briefly on the importance in offering residents and guests a safe environment within Hua Hin including medical care at an international standard.
After the official ribbon cutting the Mayor held a short press conference with local media.
Mayor Nopporn spoke about excellent level of medical care that is now available in Hua Hin.
“I am pleased to welcome you to the occasion of the opening of the second Be Well clinic in Hua Hin.
“We have all gone through turbulent times the last year and a half due to the COVID situation and particularly the travel restrictions for foreign visitors. Fortunately from this month onwards, we can expect a return of foreign guests, both long term residents as well as short-term tourists”, the Mayor said.
“For a city like Hua Hin it is important to offer residents and guests a safe environment including medical care on international standards. For years we were already blessed with an infrastructure of excellent secondary care represented through 3 leading hospitals and various specialized clinics.”
“Since January 2020 Be Well opened its first center at the Banyan resort which added Western style family health care to the city. I was pleased to witness that Be Well was soon able to show the need of primary care among the expat community.
“However, Be Well also convinced many local Thai residents that primary care is a welcome addition to the renowned secondary & tertiary care facilities in Thailand. I understand that Thai patients are now by far the largest group of Be Well members, followed by 40 other nationalities.
“I am also confident that short-term tourists will appreciate Be Well’s services and it good to see that the Hua Hin airport operators and Be Well have commenced a cooperation to provide foreign visitors information about, and access to, the outstanding medical care in town.”
Also speaking at the event, Be Well founder Haiko Emanuel revealed how its clinic at Banyan has grown to nearly 2000 members and treats 50 – 70 patients per day, 7 days a week since opening in January 2020.
“Initially the dominant group of members were Farang since they were familiar with the concept from their home country. However, the past months every second new member is Thai which shows our concept appeals to them as well,” Mr Emanuel said.
“Ideally a family health care center serves a community within a 20 minutes’ drive radius to be able to visit patients at home, if needed. It is also a convenient distance for patients to visit us. We extended the radius to 30 minutes to also serve Members further away but that is not ideal.
“For this reason, we kindly accepted Sansara’s offer to use this location (which is a 30 min drive from Banyan) as a satellite clinic. In all honesty, we don’t know how this clinic will develop in terms of size and scope of services.
“Banyan will remain our main center for Hua Hin and this satellite should be a convenience for the members living in this area and possibly we can serve neighboring institutes like the school, the golf course and waterpark.
Mr Emanuel also described Hua Hin as “the relative winner of the COVID crisis”, having been able to tap into the domestic tourism market by attracting a large inflow of Bangkokians in a way that rival destinations such as Phuket, Koh Samui and Pattaya could not.
“Bangkokians have discovered Hua Hin as their second or even new home. Also international companies who use Bangkok as regional HQ have now discovered Hua Hin as alternative, Mr Emanuel said.
“Secondly, Hua Hin has used the crisis period to prepare well for the return of foreign tourists. Particularly the initiatives to attract regional airlines to come to Hua Hin will be a major push for the growth of Hua Hin in terms of tourism and long-term stayers.
“What a great job has been done by the airport authorities, the tourist authorities, the municipality and last, but not least, the Phoenix Group and their partners.
“An important aspect of Hua Hin’s attractiveness is the well-established medical infrastructure. We are blessed with two leading private hospitals and one of the best government hospitals in this part of Thailand. We also have multiple clinics providing various specialized medical treatments. And as Be Well we feel we have filled the gap in primary care by introducing the Western concept of Family Health Care.
“This medical infrastructure will firstly provide trust for foreign guests that, if and when required, appropriate care can be provided during their stay. Be Well is cooperating with the Hua Hin airport to make local medical care well accessible for future arriving visitors.”
