It's all about medical today.  I've written about the efficiency of the medical services in Thailand, and also noted that it is quite the value for the baht.  And now we're back in Kuwait, the wife had a follow on operation for the screws that backed out of her soft bone.  Here's some comparison and information.  When you move to Kuwait, you actually legally emigrate - the whole enchilada (not a pork enchilada, though) - you become a legal resident with certain rights and privileges.  My Civil ID, the national ID card, is the one above in the picture.  Every resident in Kuwait has a Civil ID - a national ID card# that is tied to a database - tracks when you enter and leave the country every time.  Tracks if you have a travel ban.  It's something that you have to have with you at all times.  Responsibilities and rights.  One right that residents have is health care - once you have run the gauntlet of a police background check in your home and one here as well and a physical to ensure you don't have TB or are HIV positive, you get a health card (grey, bottom) that entitles you to health care at a local hospital for chump change.  But you do indeed get what you pay for, which is why there are many private hospitals and why many Kuwaitis go elsewhere for their healthcare.  There was no shortage of of Kuwaitis at Bumrungrad.  The private hospitals vary in quality in Kuwait and they aren't cheap, particularly compared to Thailand.  We choose the private hospital here.  Post op in Kuwait, Gwyne had to get a cast for her foot.  Cost?   50KD - about $180.  Inexpensive, perhaps, compared to the U.S., but wildly on the right hand side of the bell curve if you have just come from Thailand.  The care we are getting here is quite good, and the doctors are great.  Whether you are in Thailand or Kuwait, you are going to be working with doctors who do not speak English as a first language.  Unless you speak Thai or Arabic, well, then you are going to be conversing in Anglais.   And one thing I've learned in life is that if you are communicative and have a good sense of humor in your first language, you are going to be a good communicator and be able to have a good chuckle in your second or third language.  At Bumrungrad, we did not have the most communicative doctor.   Very competent, but like Strunk and White advised, he omitted needless words.  Dude, it was a writing guide.  So when we asked questions like, "How long can she be on her feet every day?"  We would get a noncommittal response, "Ummm, not too much."  Contrast that to our doctor in Kuwait, his response was, "I want you to use your feet.  I want you to exercise, to move.  Walk the first day in the boot.  As much as you can."  And the doctors in Kuwait, both of them Egyptian, had a much better sense of humor as well.  When Gwyne was waiting for her surgery in Kuwait, an assistant was revving up the drill they were going to use to screw her bone together as she was on the operating table.  The younger doctor said, "Are you ready?"  There had been no anesthesiologist in sight.  Think that drew a weak laugh from Gwyne, very weak, but a much heartier guffaw from me when she told me the story.  Medical care in the private hospitals in Kuwait (New Mowasat Hospital http://newmowasat.com/) in particular has been great.  Dental insurance, however, is notoriously stingy, so if you need major work done, medical tourism in Thailand makes economic sense.  And if you have need a complex operation that is not covered by insurance, you'd probably be on a plane for Bangkok, or elsewhere in SE Asia, not Kuwait City.  But for now, we're quite happy to be home in Kuwait.