Patient waiting: Care as a gift and debt in the Thai healthcare system

Drawing on fieldwork in Chiang Mai during 2010 and 2012, I examine poor Thais' and Shan migrants' experiences of receiving healthcare from a public hospital, and, in parallel, care from the state. While universal health coverage has become a way in which the state finds legitimacy in people's lives through giving care, being a recipient of state aid is implicated in the emotive domain of waiting. By focusing on how people feel and think of a gift and debt of care, I suggest that flows of affects that loom large in social interactions within the public hospital denote not only poor people's subordinate position but also their effort to achieve a sense of mutuality and moral autonomy. This study contributes to a broader understanding of experiences of paternalism, inequality, and dependence by illuminating people's agentive submission into relations of care.