News Beat
Spennymoor grandad fights for life in Thailand hospital
Malcolm Pilmoor, who spends the UK’s winter months living in Thailand, had been suffering from a foot infection and was due for a routine hospital check-up when things took a turn.
The 74-year-old was forced to go to hospital early last Monday (January 12) – and within hours, the former navy man and electrical engineer was put on a ventilator, sedated, and placed on life support.
His family were devastated to learn the grandad-of-three was battling pneumonia – and his daughter Carrie Francis and her husband John have since flown out to be by his side.
His granddaughter Chantel Spanton said the situation has been like “deja vu” as it comes just seven years after Malcolm’s wife Karen, 67, took ill on holiday in Spain and sadly died.
“It was horrific”, she said. “It has dragged up a lot for us as a family.
“My nanna died when she was in Spain. When we got the call [about grandad] it was like deja vu – but Spain is only two and half hours on a plane.
“He was poorly on the Monday, he has been having a little bit of an infection in his foot so he was due to go back to the hospital on Friday.
“He hadn’t been feeling the best but was waiting for the check-up.
“But on Monday night, he had gone to the hospital and then before we knew it, on Tuesday afternoon, he was on a ventilator, sedated, and on life support.”
Malcolm, who stays in Surin when he visits the south east Asian country, is currently receiving treatment at Prasat Hospital, in north-eastern Thailand.
His family say that, at the moment, they believe the dad-of-two has no medical insurance and are therefore having to fork out around £2,000 a day for his care.
Speaking on Sunday (January 18) Chantel continued: “There is a bit of a language barrier because he is in a hospital about six hours away from Bangkok. But we spoke to a doctor this morning.
“He has got pneumonia, but one of his lungs does seem to be getting better and the other one is not as bad as it was.
“It is still not great, but they are talking about starting to reduce his ventilator a bit so I am hoping that it all sounds positive.”
‘We’re doing anything we can’
Malcolm, who has lived in Spennymoor for about 50 years, was out in Thailand to say goodbye to friends and collect his things as he prepared for a permanent move back to the UK.
He’d been going there ever since his “childhood sweetheart” Karen, whom he had known since they were just 12-years-old, suddenly passed after having an aneurysm.
“He has been going out there for quite a while now”, Chantel said.
“Two to three years after nana passed, his friend was going out there so he started going. Then he started going out there for six months at a time during the winter here.
“But this time he was going out, he is getting a little bit older and now wants to be at home. He went out in October and he was due to fly back on January 26.
“He was there to say bye to all of his friends and he was going there to get his stuff.”
However, Malcolm’s partner Alidad has told the family that he does not currently have any insurance.
Chantel said: “He might have just thought to himself, ‘I am going to go out there and then back home’, he takes it out every single year.”
The family are now receiving a string of bills to pay – and, as the price continues to rise each day, have set up a GoFundMe with the hope of getting help from others.
“We are getting [bills] twice a day”, she said.
“It is anywhere from £700 to £2,000 worth of treatment he is having at the moment. It depends on what they have done for him.
“[The fundraiser] is a massive help but when we spoke to the hospital it could be four weeks in some scenarios.
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“When you think about it like that, we’re just doing anything that we possibly can to try and raise the money. But he is in a better situation than we thought he was.
“It seems like he is improving and he is responding. We thought we would be going there in a much different situation.”
You can donate to Malcolm’s GoFundMe by visiting tinyurl.com/3uubeaht
