Koh Lanta's hospital: 10 beds in a 2017 study, 30 beds in 2025, and an address the sources do not agree on

Ko Lanta Hospital is the district's public hospital, and the figures printed about it do not line up. This piece sets out what dated sources say and where they stop. It is not medical advice.

If you need help now

Thailand's national emergency medical number is 1669, the hotline of the National Institute for Emergency Medicine. We found no published figure for how long an ambulance takes to reach different parts of Koh Lanta, and we are not guessing one. For a diving injury, see where the nearest recompression chamber is. For what travel insurance has to carry, see our piece on the scooter rule.

How big it is: 10 beds, then 30

• A research article by Wanchai Intong, of the hospital's own pharmacy department, and Khunjira Udomaksorn, of Prince of Songkla University, used the hospital's records for fiscal year 2017 (1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017). It calls Ko Lanta Hospital a community hospital with 10 beds, in an area classed as remote, level 2. It was accepted for publication on 11 December 2019 and is hosted on the Thai Journals Online platform.
• Thansettakij, on 17 August 2025, reported a visit by Deputy Minister of Public Health Chaichana Detdecho and calls it a community hospital of 30 beds. The visit was about the hospital's drug-treatment programme, which Thansettakij calls the LANTA Model.

We found no source that explains or dates the change from 10 beds to 30. The two figures could count different things, or the hospital could have grown. We cannot tell which.

What the 2017 data say it does

The study lists clinics for diabetes, high blood pressure, HIV, tuberculosis, asthma, chronic lung disease and chronic kidney disease, plus accident and emergency care, Thai traditional medicine, physical therapy, dental care, patient transfers, general inpatient care, childbirth, home visits and mobile units. It counts emergency medical service call-outs among the hospital's activities, and it lists accident and emergency care among the services it ran outside office hours.

The study's money figures are what services cost the hospital, not what patients pay. In fiscal 2017 an accident and emergency visit cost the hospital 581.56 baht on average against 715.84 baht of revenue. A patient transfer to another hospital was its costliest outpatient service: 2,277.39 baht a visit in office hours and 5,941.78 baht out of hours, against 1,380 baht of revenue. The authors suggest the high transfer cost reflects staff being on call and paid whether or not a transfer happens. A hospital bed-day cost 2,176.15 baht. The paper also says the hospital had been short of cash since fiscal 2011 and was at the highest level, 7, in the ministry financial-risk report the paper cites. These figures are eight years old.

A new hospital, and two addresses

• On 15 October 2021 the Ko Lanta district chief, Somphot Thongchu, listed the district's COVID-19 beds on the Krabi provincial public relations office's site: 10 in Ko Lanta Hospital's red ward and 80 in a cohort ward at "the new Ko Lanta hospital". The page gives no location for either.
• Thai Wikipedia, quoting the Ko Lanta Noi subdistrict authority's own history, says the government centre at Ban Lang Sot in Ko Lanta Noi, which also holds the district office, houses the public health office and the new hospital. We could not confirm that from a ministry source. The move of the district office is in our piece on Ko Lanta Noi.
• Published listings give two addresses, both with postcode 81150: 118 Moo 1 in Ko Lanta Yai subdistrict, on a business directory and on a US Embassy list of Thai hospitals dated February 2026, and 308 in Ko Lanta Noi subdistrict on another listing.

That pattern would fit an older hospital in Ko Lanta Yai and a newer one in Ko Lanta Noi. It is our guess. We found no source that says the hospital moved, or when, so we are not printing an address.

What we could not confirm

• Which address is the hospital's today.
• When and why the bed count went from 10 to 30.
• That emergency care runs 24 hours. A business directory says so, and the 2017 study says only that emergency care ran outside office hours.
• How long an ambulance takes to reach different parts of the island.

If you work at the hospital, or have used it, and can tell us where it is and what it can treat, write to us. We would rather print one confirmed address than two disputed ones.

Sources: the Intong and Udomaksorn cost study (Thai Journals Online), read in full in Thai; Thansettakij, 17 August 2025; the Krabi provincial public relations office page of 15 October 2021; Thai Wikipedia on Ko Lanta Noi subdistrict; business directory and US Embassy hospital-list entries as shown in search results, which we did not open in full. All are in Thai or English and were read through our own translation.