How do you get from Koh Tao to a hospital on Koh Samui in an emergency?

You do not organise this yourself. The island has a working chain, and the fastest thing you or a friend can do is start it rather than improvise a ferry ticket.

The sequence

1. Call 1669 for a medical emergency. Rescue Koh Tao, a volunteer branch of a Surat Thani foundation with an ambulance and a speedboat, also answers on 087 979 0191 or 1333, day and night. For a dive injury, call the recompression chamber line on 081 081 9777.
2. Get to Koh Tao Hospital in Mae Haad, 077 456 490. It runs a 24 hour emergency service, has around ten beds and its own ambulance, and it decides whether you leave the island.
3. The hospital arranges the evacuation, by speedboat or by helicopter depending on the case, to Koh Samui or to Chumphon on the mainland. Bangkok Hospital Samui also operates a boat ambulance for patients on Koh Tao and Koh Phangan.
4. Someone calls your insurer while you are being stabilised, to open the case and ask for a guarantee of payment. Private hospitals usually want a deposit without one.

Time and money

The crossing takes one to two hours by speedboat or ferry, and BAANLYY puts the transfer at 2,000 to 8,000 THB. That is the boat, not the treatment. Thailand Starter Kit gives 3,000 to 15,000 THB for a private emergency room visit, 100,000 to 500,000 THB and more for surgery, and 300,000 to 1,500,000 THB for a medical evacuation.

We have not found a published price for the helicopter option, and we are not going to guess at one. Ask your insurer whether evacuation from the islands is covered and at what limit, because that is the line where a policy either works or does not.

What a scooter crash costs from start to finish, deposits included, is in what a motorbike crash on Koh Tao really costs. Our Thailand healthcare and insurance guide covers cover and direct billing, and the healthcare section of our Koh Tao page lists the clinics on the island.