General Healthcare, dental or minor surgeries I would do without worries here. Buying cheap medicine OTC also.

For life-threatening procedures or higher risk surgeries I agree with you, that you are better of in a western country. For me that would also include Singapore. For my LASIK surgery in the National Eye Center there a few years back, the professionalism was definitely on par, if not better than back in Germany.

Last thing I read, the chance of getting infected by heavy-resistant staphylococci is meanwhile the highest in British or American hospitals.

But to be fair If the procedure is very minor then I think it could be considered, but I think people get lulled into a false sense of security, and when things go wrong the third world is not a place you want to be. I say this because of the facilities available and also the culture of asian doctors in that they will never be 100% honest with you. Wheras in the west you’ll always get the worst case scenarios for fear of the doctors being sued.

I’ve have been there when things have gone very badly wrong, I don’t know perhaps someone would have to experience it to really appreciate my point of view.