Rutnin Eye Hospital - Eye Clinics in Bangkok

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Rutnin Eye Hospital is housed in a non-descript multistorey building on Asoke road, close to Petchaburi road. The entrance is hidden in the car parking lot. Despite the poor architectural designs, the hospital can be recommended for its eye examinations and treatments.

Rutnin Eye Hospital - Eye Clinics in Bangkok :
If you need any check-up for your eyesight, we can recommend Rutnin Eye Hospital, located on Asoke road. It is located on the right side, when you enter Asoke from Sukhumvit Road. It is a 2 km walk though from Sukhumvit, since the Eye hospital is located close to Petchaburi Road.
The hospital just recently has been rebuild. While prices have gone up the last few years, a thorough general check-up costs less than 1,000 baht. It includes visual acuity and refraction measurements, eyeball pressure measurements (necessary every so often when you passed 40 years of age), and examination by an ophthalmologist.(see tip below)
You can have your eyes checked if you just need new glasses, at about every street corner in Bangkok.
When looking for eyewear such as eyeglasses, lenses etc. there are two ways to go about it. There are many 'shops' around the city. Some are run by individuals, some are part of chains such as Top Charoen Optical and Beautiful Optical. You can distinguish between the two by looking on how the staff is dresses. In most chains, the personnel will be uniformed, and mainly consist of girls or young women. It is always difficult to be sure about the quality of service provided. Certainly some shops have been in business for a long time, have good knowledge and experience and provide good services at very reasonable prices. You should certainly bargain on the frames, usually prices can be bargained down by 20-50%. Lenses are more fixed priced. Everything is basically available, like bifocal and progressive eye lenses etc.

From our experience at Rutnin Eye Hospital, we know that 'simple' one-lense glasses can be finished within an hour, so you can simple wait for them or go drink a coffee round the corner. You can not expect this speed at eyewear chains though, since they surely can not make the glasses at the spot, but have to send the order to another location.
For bifocals, you would need to wait possibly for about a week, even at the better equipped facilities. Hoya lenses seem to be widely available and are good quality. Of course, our personal experience is limited.

However, recently we got prescription eye glasses at Rutnin Eye Hospital to use both for looking at a computer screen, and reading. The result was quite disappointing, and the glasses are only useable as reading glasses. When we went back to discuss this issue, we were quite disappointed with their response. The staff went out of their way to put the blame on me, pretended not to understand my complaint, and otherwise treated me as someone less intelligent. Maybe it is safer to just stick to easily made eyeglasses, but then again we do not have a good advice as where to go instead for progressive or similar eyeglasses.

One tip : when going for a check-up it is useful to not go by car, and to take some sunglasses with you. To have a good look at your retina, dilating eyedrops have to be dropped into your eyes, which makes your eyesight a bit blurred for a few hours, and highly sensitive to sunlight. If you are not prepared this way, you will be told the exam will be done next time, with the same advice we give here.

Traffic on Asoke Road, close to Rutnin Eye Hospital. Notice the motorcycle driver with the orange jacket. That is how you can recognize the 'motorcycle taxis', commonly used (at your own peril) in Bangkok traffic.

One has to realize that staff in the eyewear chains are possibly more inclined to sell you their product (for which they use mainly female staff), but might not always be capable of performing repairs on the spot, since your eyewear will have to be sent to the repair facility and then be sent back. Minor changes, such as changing nosepads, however, are usually done instantly.
Most shops will have equipment available to measure your eyesight and have lenses made accordingly. However, personally we prefer to have this done at the Rutnin Eye Hospital, where you get additional examinations and are seen by an opthalmologist. Our experience is that proper eyesight examination takes some time, and the procedure seems to be done rather quickly in most roadside shops. You can use your prescriptions for glasses from the hospital to any of the shops, and have your eyewear made accordingly. Actually, we recommend that you get your prescription eyewear at Rutnin Eye Hospital, if you have been seen there by the ophthalmologist.
You can also have laser surgery done in Bangkok. There are regularly advertisements for this in the newspapers :
We understand this service is provided in the major hospitals like Bumrungrad and Bangkok General. Also check out the websites below. We do not really are in favor of such treatment, since there is always a risk involved, however much it is talked down by the providers of such services, and strictly speaking it is seldom medically necessary (that is, it is mostly done for 'cosmetic' reasons and the comfort of not having to wear eyeglasses) We are sure prices are competitive, if we remember well, it can be done for about 2,000 dollars (both eyes)
Thai Refractive Surgery Center
Crystal Laser Center
Rutnin-Gimble LASIK Centre
Laser Vision Professional Lasik Center
Beware, we read on one of these websites that you are advised to moisturize your eyes every 15-30 minutes, if you go back home on a plane soon after the surgery!

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