I just came across another health station (สถานีอนามัย) tagged as amenity=hospital. Not remembering what the preferred tagging was, I rediscovered this thread where it was briefly discussed, but inconclusively. The relevant comments are:
This should probably be that thread. I’ll list the types I can think of in descending order, beginning with the most obvious:
Hospitals (โรงพยาบาล), public or private, with inpatient beds. The smaller ones may be named สถานพยาบาล (“health centres”):
amenity=hospital
healthcare=hospital
emergency=yes or emergency=no
operator:type=public or operator:type=private
healthcare:speciality=* if applicable
(The amenity and healthcare tags are redundant, but both should still probably be used for legacy reasons.)
Doctor’s clinics (คลินิกเวชกรรม) are a bit tricky. Most of the clinics in Thailand are run by just one or a handful of doctors, and are closer to what’s known elsewhere as a doctor’s practice/surgery/office. Despite the name usually used in Thailand, they should follow the standard tagging scheme. I’d suggest the following for the typical private clinic run by a single doctor:
amenity=doctors
healthcare=doctor
healthcare:speciality=* if applicable
For dental clinics (คลินิกทันตกรรม):
amenity=dentist
healthcare=dentist
These two are probably the most commonly encountered. There are also other legally defined types of clinics:
Nursing and midwifery: healthcare=nurse;midwife
Physiotherapy: healthcare=physiotherapist
Medical technician’s: healthcare=laboratory
Traditional Thai medicine: healthcare=alternative healthcare:speciality=traditional_thai_medicine
Art of healing: This is an all-encompassing legal term for psychologists, therapists, etc. Use the applicable tag for the practice.
For larger establishments (the wiki suggests 10 or more staff as the cut-off point), use:
amenity=clinic
healthcare=clinic
healthcare:speciality=* if applicable
I’m not quite sure what a practical point of distinction would be for Thailand. The only example of a large outpatient-only clinic I can think of off the top of my head is the Medical Development Clinic (คลินิกศูนย์แพทย์พัฒนา) on Pradit Manutham Rd. in Bangkok. But there are probably more mid-size clinics that could be tagged as such.
Beauty clinics are also very common nowadays, with many chain brands found in shopping malls. I’m not quite familiar with their operations, though. Does anyone know if most of them are closer to individual practices or larger clinics? In any case, I’d say they should carry:
amenity=doctors or amenity=clinic depending on size
healthcare=doctor or healthcare=clinic, likewise
healthcare:speciality=dermatology or healthcare:speciality=plastic_surgery if applicable, depending on the type of practice
shop=beauty if they also offer non-medical beauty treatments?
Obviously, this tagging should only be used for legally licensed clinics with practising doctors. These will have their licence number clearly shown on the storefront. Illegal clinics are apparently also prevalent, but I guess we probably shouldn’t be tagging those.
And finally, there’s the original query, the health stations (สถานีอนามัย) aka tambon health promoting hospitals (รพ.สต.). These are found in every tambon throughout the country, and are usually staffed with community health workers, though some may also have resident nurses and/or doctors. More typically, nurses and/or doctors from the nearby hospital may attend outpatients there a few days each week (or month), but are not permanently stationed there.
There’s a tag, amenity=health_post, whose description appears to closely match this type of facility. It’s barely used, though, with only a few hundred instances, mostly in Nepal. I don’t think it’s recognised by any renderer (though of course, we shouldn’t tag for the renderer).
Should we decide to use this tag for the health stations/THPHs (and convert the existing ones to use the tag)?
Oh, and in Bangkok, the equivalent of health stations are called public health centres (ศูนย์บริการสาธารณสุข), though most of these are large facilities with at least one resident doctor, multiple nurses and staff, and probably should be tagged as amenity=clinic.