This time, after getting my shopping done at Plaza Mexico and the large Office Max next door, I sat down at Starbucks with Jane Pifer, whose husband Norm has been the President of the Cruz Roja International Volunteers until recently, when Charlie Klestadt took over. Norm and Jane continue to be very much involved. I had chatted with them on the Tlaquepaque trip before Christmas and asked them then if I could do a video interview for this blog. They said sure, but Starbucks turned out to be too noisy, and we couldn’t think of anyplace quieter, so I just chatted with Jane for a while.

The Cruz Roja operates all over Mexico, and the Chapala one covers about half of Lake Chapala’s shoreline, including all the areas heavily populated with foreigners. You can see a map and find out a lot more about this great organization at http://www.cruzrojalakeside.com/

In the US, and in many parts of the world, when we think of the Red Cross, we think of disaster relief. That is part of the work here, but the Cruz Roja is best known for its ambulance services and the clinic it runs in Chapala, fully staffed 24/7. Many a life, both Mexican and foreign, has been saved by these services. Living as I do on the western end of the north shore of the lake, some ways from their clinic, I’ve been happy to see the ambulance that is just a few minutes’ drive from our home. I’d better not forget to mention the only Jaws of Life in the area is the Cruz Roja one.

They do everything without government funding, Jane explained to me. The volunteers work hard at fundraising. You can now make a donation via PayPal which is tax deductible in both the US and Canada… that took a look of work to put in place. You can do it from the link above.

Besides PayPal, fundraising includes:

• A month when young Mexicans enthusiastically wave cans at crossroads to collect money from everyone
• Donations made by local businesses
• The bus trips
• A fashion show which has been taken to a new level by volunteer Ceci Girling, who has a background in fashion and has worked with Guadalajara and Lakeside designers to make it incredibly elegant, professional, and fun

The Cruz Roja also receives funds from the annual Regalorama thrift sale at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Riberas del Pilar. That event, early in December, is a must-go on my calendar. Used books in English! Nice clothing! And I always spend freely, knowing that my pesos are going to such worthy causes.

The Cruz Roja Chapala only charges for certain aspects of ambulance transport, like transferring a patient to a hospital in Guadalajara. The medical care is free. Patients are told what the costs are, and most of them make donations that cover the cost or exceed it, but they are not required to.

Jane told me a lot more. There is always a need for volunteers, so if you live Lakeside, you might like to look over their website, which has information for volunteers. Whether or not you live in this area, if you have even a few bucks you would like to give to a great cause, you too might like to go take a look. That link again is:

http://www.cruzrojalakeside.com/
Comments from the old blog:

*At January 10, 2009 7:21 AM, Bob Mrotek said…

One of the reasons that Mexico is such a nice place to live and has such a bright future is the Americans and Canadians who make it their home and are always willing to pitch in and help. May God bless all of you. The little seeds of kindness and compassion that you are sowing along with your wonderful Mexican counterparts will surely bear fruit.

*At January 11, 2009 2:10 PM, Calypso said…

I NEVER pass a Red Cross collection without contributing to their donation cans – They are prominent and a great service to our community here in Xico, Veracruz.

*At January 12, 2009 4:22 PM, Paul and Robyn said…

Have been reading your blog for a couple of months now. I like hearing what is happening south of the border when I am not down there. If you want you can check out my blog at www.casalagarto.blogspot.com

*At January 12, 2009 9:06 PM, Islagringo said…

The Red Cross in Mexico is indeed a fantastic organization. Run like one should be run. After Hurricane Wilma, they had helicopters loaded with water and other supplies on this island within hours and it never stopped. They even came door to door with “goodie” bags. Like Calypso, I always donate to them.

The gringo population here is very supportive and also sponsors many fundraisers for them. Thank you for this nice article.

*At January 14, 2009 6:48 PM, Rosana Hart said…

Paul and Robyn, I did look at your blog. Hope you can find yourselves here more! We too came from–brrr!–Colorado.

*At January 17, 2009 9:20 PM, Blogger Kadmiel said…

this is a great blog on mexico im going to add you to my blog roll if you don;t mind :) but giving is a little bit of hapiness for someone else even if your not able to give a lot sometimes just a little goes along way

The Chapala Red Cross: A Lot of Action, a Lot of Love is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Nobody wants to end up suffering.

So a couple of questions come up: what preparations to make and how to cope with the fear of what might happen?

Preparations that Kelly and I have made include getting lots of exercise in his case and a moderate amount in mine… I do wear a pedometer every day and make sure I get in a certain amount of walking. We eat very healthfully, mostly at home, and our large organic garden helps out here. Kelly is pretty much an ideal weight and well, I’m working on it. We don’t smoke and we don’t drink a lot. We stay off the highways at times they are more dangerous. I do various stress management things, like deep breathing and EFT. We both come from long-lived ancestors but that is now considered less important than lifestyle. (I’ve even thought of doing a website on food, exercise, and health, to learn more and increase my motivation.)

Another aspect of preparation is of course the financial. Expats around the Lake Chapala area range in income levels from miniscule to wealthy. So various options exist. IMSS, the national Mexican health care system, is something that foreigners can join for a few hundred dollars a year; there is a three-year wait for some things, and I am not sure what — maybe pre-existing conditions. I have not looked into IMSS, because the level of care is so uneven that I would be reluctant to use it. Private insurance exists and US health insurance may work here… unlike car insurance! There are also health insurance companies that insure you worldwide, and I may look into those for us.

Cash is the option we have used thus far. Health care costs are so reasonable that even when Kelly broke his rib and had an ambulance ride, x-rays, and various doctor, medicine, and physical therapy bills, the total was under $600 US and the care was fine.

Other people we know have used IMSS (some with very good results), private insurance, and cash. Some people use Medicare, returning to the US to do so as it does not cover Americans outside the US. Once in a while, we hear of people who returned to the US after living here, because that was the best solution medically for them.

I think that a lot of the practical preparations grow out of each person’s way of dealing with any fear they feel about what might happen. In my case, the fear is one part of what motivates my dietary and exercise choices, and I’ll admit to taking better care of myself now than I did when younger! Someone else may choose to carry better insurance.

I do think that we Americans can get so focused on the risks of the future that we don’t quite remember to live fully in the present. I really feel for people in the US who stay on at jobs they don’t like because of their health coverage, to take one example. I’m glad I’ve never been in that position.

None of us will get out of here alive, as the saying goes. May each of us actively work at staying healthy and at enjoying our time here on this earth. We can learn a lot from Mexicans about the second one.

1 Comment from the old blog:

*At March 13, 2008 6:34 PM, Wayne W said…

Even in the border towns where the seniors go across the border for medical, dental and drugs you can hear both horror and fantastic stories of care.

I guess you can hear just as many horror stories with the US medical system between medical mistakes and dealing with the insurance companies an experience can go either way.

I’ve almost gone to a border town dentist, but I’d have to get a recommendation from someone I knew actually went there, not only a friend of theirs heard something.

Thanks

Health Care, Health Insurance, Money, and Quality of Life is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

2 Comments from the old blog:

• At July 17, 2008 7:53 PM,  

  ROSANA, YO SON NATIVA DE GUADALAJARA, JALISCO EDUCADA Y EGRESADA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE GUADALAJARA, ENFERMERA DE PROFESION, HOY TENGO YA LISCENCIA EN ESTADOS UNIDOS, Y RECONOZCO SU EXPERIENCIA MEDICA, EXISTEN MUY BUENOS DOCTORES EN MEXICO PERO NO SE LES HA DADO EL MERECIDO RECONOCIMIENTO A SU LABOR MEDICA, DIOS LE BENDIGA . Martha Perez.

• At July 17, 2008 10:16 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  Martha, muchas gracias!

Another Good Mexican Medical Experience is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Once there, I only had to wait about 20 minutes before I was seen by a young woman doctor. She checked my ears and confirmed what I suspected, that I had an infection. She gave me prescriptions for antibiotics, ibuprofen, and antihistamines, which we filled at the large, modern Farmacia Guadalajara (part of a chain) across the street.  She and I spoke in a mixture of Spanish and English.

On Tuesday I went back to the clinic because my ear was again getting worse and had kept me awake in the night. This time I was seen by Dr. Alfredo Rodriguez, who has worked there for many years and speaks excellent English. He said there was a lot of debris in the ear and so he cleaned it, excavating all sorts of yucky little bits of encrusted gunk, which he showed me as they came out. I appreciated seeing what each painful attack yielded. Made it more worthwhile! I wonder, would an American doctor have shown me the gunk?

So now I’m healing and reflecting on the care I received. The costs were very different from what they would have been in the US: 150 pesos (about $14 US and that is not a typo) to be seen on the weekend, and 250 pesos for the office visit where Dr. Rodriguez spent more time doing the cleaning. The meds were about 800 pesos on Saturday, and 300 more on Tuesday, and without listing exactly what I got, you can’t really compare those with US prices.

Something else I like is that when I went in both times, I didn’t need an appointment. Like on the weekends, the Ajijic Clinic treats patients in the order of arrival during the week too. I waited closer to an hour, as Dr. Rodriguez saw a young Mexican woman cradling her obviously very painful arm and a Canadian woman I know. The clinic does offer appointments for seeing any of the numerous specialists who come out from Guadalajara part of the week.

By the way, Dr. Rodriguez is listed as one of the best doctors in Mexico in a book called Mexico: Health and Safety Travel Guide, written by some doctors. He and I chatted about the quality of care available in Guadalajara — it is really top notch. For many things, it is among the very best places to go in North America.

Visiting the Ajijic Clinic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

So there is also a lot of diabetes here, diagnosed and not. According to that same article, Mexico has the highest rate in the world of Type II diabetes in children in the world and the second highest adult rate in the world. The health care system here is being strained by the needs of these people.

So why am I writing about this? When I saw the article, I was moved by it. Members of my family have had diabetes, and the desire to not develop it is one of the things that motivates me to exercise and to eat moderately, at least part of the time! Including Thanksgiving. We’re doing a simple one at home with friends. The frozen turkey from Chihuahua is thawing in the fridge.

5 Comments from the old blog:

• At November 24, 2007 11:55 PM,  Ken Edwards said…

  Obesity is NOT a normal part of the culture. Nor is it part of ANY culture. There were VERY FEW Fat Mexicans when I came here in 1954.

  They ate tortillas and lots of beans and chile and lots of lard and there was practically no Pan Bimbo or White Wonder bread. Pepsi was here but was very expensive.

  There was not a single place that sold Birthday cakes. Cakes and pies were unheard of. Packaged cookies were just beginning. Frosting was unheard of.

  There was traditional Pan Dulce.

  Obesity comes from eating SUGAR just the same as in the States.

• At November 25, 2007 12:55 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  I agree that obesity isn’t part of the culture as it was, but with all the junk food now, this online video by Dr. Dean Ornish is very telling:

  http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/10

  It’s called “The world now eats (and dies) like Americans.”

• At November 25, 2007 2:55 PM, lyle said…

  Hey rosana. I tried http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/10
  and I got wikipedia.

  ken

• At November 25, 2007 8:53 PM,  Rosana Hart said…

  Weird! It works for me. Try cutting and pasting, or just go to www.ted.com and search on dean ornish.

• At November 25, 2007 9:44 PM,  Ken Edwards said…

  Thanks I got it. Ornish is Very Very Scary. I see it all around me but I never saw it globally before.

  A visit to the U.S. used to be horrible with 6 year old butterballs waddling down the street. Now a visit to Mexico is getting to be almost as bad.

  Hypoglycemia and Sugar Diabetis is in my genes. One dead brother and 2 much younger diabetic sisters. I will outlive them. 26 years ago I was pre-diabetic (hypoglycemic) and I changed my diet and excercise habits radically and got normal weight and stayed there and am hale at 82.

  Now it is coming to Mayan Guatemala.

  In Guatemala packaged cookies are just now appearing in the small, neiborhood stores. Wedding cakes are suddenly available in Panajachel. Refrescos are just beginning to be affordable.

  Ornish is tragically right. It’s coming.

  Please excuse my gloom and my bad manners but I am old and I have buried too many fatties to be polite.. Ken Edwards

Obesity and Diabetes in Mexico is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I chose the Ajijic Clinic because I needed to go to a dermatologist and a friend of mine recommended the one at this clinic. Dra. Reyes comes out from Guadalajara a couple of times a week. She speaks English more correctly than I speak Spanish. When she suggested that we could speak Spanglish, I felt right at home, as I often make that very suggestion! We communicated perfectly from then on, in Spanglish.

On my first visit, she examined me and was able to assure me that I only had benign moles and such on my body. We scheduled a second visit for a liquid nitrogen session to remove a bunch of these from my face and neck for cosmetic reasons. She said it wasn’t too painful.

When I went back for the procedure, I lay on an examining table, and she and a nurse were on either side of me. The nurse, Lulu, was very friendly and outgoing. She has a little English but we stayed pretty much in Spanish.

As the doctora sprayed the nitrogen on the various spots, she and Lulu kept up a running conversation which I joined at times. When two Mexican women estan platicando (are chatting) I am lucky to follow a third of it, but it wasn’t hard to pick out ex-esposo (ex-spouse) so I commented on that. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation jumped but I learned that when Mexican men find a woman attractive they may call her a mamacita and the reverse is true too: a good-looking fellow may be called a papacito. I will listen for these words in conversations I overhear. I told them the English expression “red hot mama,” which they both chortled at.

All this lively banter helped distract me, which was good, because the stings of the nitrogen did hurt at times. I’m glad to have that behind me.

I would definitely go back to that clinic in the future. In fact, I will be there next month for a CPR class that a Canadian woman I know has set up.

A friend of mine just had knee surgery at the Ajijic Clinic and she could not say enough good things about the quality of the doctors and of the care she received during her few days there. A specialist came out for Guadalajara for the surgery, and she was in the clinic for a few days after. She commented on how very caring the people were.

Costs: An office visit with the doctor was 350 pesos, about $32 US. The procedure was 800 pesos. Not bad. And I didn’t have to wait more than about 5 minutes to see the doctor either time!

To the Dermatologist at the Ajijic Clinic is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Next, diarrhea.

I spent all day yesterday dozing on the bed or on the sofa for variety. I wasn’t upright for more than a few minutes. I drank water and ate about half a baked potato.

Today, I’m much better but still a bit weak.

This is not an unusual Mexican scenario. While public health is way better than it used to be, there are still bugs lurking. Did I catch something from someone on the bus? Was it the lettuce in the restaurant meal I had the day before I got sick? While the time-honored advice is never to eat any raw fruits or vegetables, the reality in Mexico is that almost all of the time, you will be fine. There’s no way of knowing if this was an exception or if something else happened. Kelly and I generally use our intuition about what to eat.

I’m very glad to be feeling better. It had been a long time since I’d thrown up and I had forgotten both how unpleasant it is and also how much better you feel afterwards.

Just another part of the Mexican experience. In fairness, though, I should add that after Kelly and I once spent several months in Mexico, he got sick after we got back to the US!

Sick in the Night is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I’ll go into considerable detail because I know that people are interested in Mexican health care. If you’re squeamish, it really isn’t too bad…

Two days ago around ten in the morning, Kelly was descending from the roof of a house where he’d been taking photos of the magnificent view, when a cement post which he was using for support toppled over. Luckily there was a retaining wall and earth right there, so he only fell about six feet. The post whacked his chest pretty hard. Kelly was short of breath and in considerable pain.

The Mexican man we were with had a cellphone, and he called an ambulance. It came from the town of Jocotepec, just a few miles from where we were at the time and help got there in less than 15 minutes. Several people arrived, including a woman wearing a white shirt with an insignia and blue slacks. She was a paramedic, I later learned. When she arrived, I immediately sensed her competence and felt immensely relieved.

She and two men left Kelly where he was lying down on the retaining wall, put supports around Kelly’s neck, and took hold of him. Someone called out “uno, dos tres,” and they rolled him in unison, slid a stretcher under him, rolled him back, strapped him down and got him right into the ambulance, putting the stretcher on a gurney.

Our friend offered to take me to the clinic where Kelly was going in his car, but the ambulance people said I could also go with them. I chose to stay with Kelly and rode in the front seat of the ambulance with the driver while the paramedic rode right next to Kelly. I wondered how the several other people had arrived — and then I saw a large fire truck parked nearby, with the others getting into it.

As we went into Jocotepec, the paramedic told Kelly’s blood pressure to the driver, who used some kind of a radio phone to let the clinic know we were coming. I asked the woman how Kelly was doing and she said his signs were good.

The very moment we got there, the doctor saw him. No paperwork –they didn’t even ask his name till later. I was exiled to the waiting room for a while, where I did some praying and stared at a poster that said in Spanish, “STOP! One woman in five experiences marital violence. You deserve a life of respect.” There was also a poster that said that any patient staying in the clinic should have someone with them, preferably a family member.

The clinic was a municipal one, a basic two-story cement-block building, quite clean. The doctor came out and told me that he thought Kelly would be fine, and that he would have some x-rays done, then keep Kelly for observation for a while, and that if all was well, we could go home in a few hours. He had given Kelly some pain medication, and Kelly was on an IV that stayed with him. Both Kelly and I felt he was skilled and caring.

I was a little confused to see Kelly being wheeled towards the street door by the paramedic and driver until they explained that the clinic did not have x-ray facilities and we would be going a few blocks to an x-ray lab. They told me to come along so I could pay separately for the x-rays. So that all happened. The x-ray machine looked a little like something from the 1950s, and the cost was 200 pesos, a bit under $20 US. They gave me the x-ray in an envelope, to carry around and take home.

On the way back to the hospital, we stopped in a busy street somewhere and we were transferred to the other ambulance that Jocotepec has. The one we were in was supposed to go to Guadalajara right then. Our crew, Monica the paramedic and Pedro the driver, took us back to the clinic in the other ambulance.

Once back at the clinic, the doctor showed the x-ray to Kelly and me and explained it. It looked good, no broken bones showing nor anything else serious. He put Kelly in the two-bed room, in one bed, and I was welcome to be in there with him. So I stood by the bed or sometimes sat. There was a three-seat sofa and various other people came and went. A young child, and later a four-month old baby, were held by their mothers while they were put on a respirator as a way of giving them medicine. An old woman was in the other bed for some time, while her middle-aged daughter sat on the sofa. I tended to stay off it when others were on it, to minimize exposure to the contagious diseases they all had.

Kelly asked me to see if I could get him some water to drink. When I asked, I was directed to a little grocery shop across the street, where I got us each a bottle of purified water.

Within about an hour, the doctor said we could go home. He said we could take a taxi but he’d recommend the ambulance, though there would be a charge if we used it. We opted for the ambulance. But first I went upstairs and paid the bill: 600 pesos, or just under $60 US. 300 pesos was for the ambulance ride back home, and the other 300 was for meds, supplies, and the doctor. He had given Kelly a prescription for a painkiller, an anti-inflammatory, and something else. I later had these filled near where we’re staying for 470 pesos, about $47 US. So we were charged a total of $127 US for all this.

There was no fee for the ambulance from the site of the accident to the clinic. When I expressed surprise, the woman I was paying said that many people had no money and the goverment pays for it.

Then it was back in the ambulance with Monica and Pedro for a drive of maybe 10 or 15 miles, from Jocotepec to the town we’re staying in, San Antonio Tlayacapan. Pedro drove the ambulance with aplomb, spending far more time than I was comfortable with in the opposite lane of the busy two-lane highway as he passed slower vehicles.

I turned and talked with Monica. I asked her how she could deal with all sorts of accidents. She said that she had gotten used to it and that she loved her work. She’s been doing it 17 years and likes being able to help. I asked if there were many women paramedics and she said not in the lake area.

When we stopped at our place, several of the neighbor women who hang out in the street stared at us , so I told them briefly what had happened, and then Kelly and I collapsed in exhaustion in the motorhome, two very happy campers that it hadn’t been worse.

—————————-

Both Kelly and I were very pleased with the quality and speed of the care he received. It was a very Mexican experience, and certainly quite basic, but it did the job. Nobody spoke any English, but our Spanish was adequate. Knowing what I know now, in an emergency, I would ask to go to a private clinic that had emergency facilities. The public Mexican health care system has sure come a long way over the decades I’ve been coming to Mexico, but the private system is generally way better.

——————————

Yesterday Kelly rested, his healing coming along. We decided to go to a highly-recommended private clinic a couple of miles away, Clinica MasKaras in Riberas del Pilar, for a follow-up visit. When I called, I actually asked for a house call, which is common in Mexico, but the receptionist had me talk to the doctor and he said he would prefer that Kelly come in, and so we did this morning.

The clinic has a number of doctors, and the internist Dr. Garcia (who is the head doctor there) saw Kelly this morning, Saturday. He was fine with my sitting in on everything. Everyone spoke good English. The internist did a thorough interview of Kelly’s medical history, entering everything in a computer. Then he ordered more x-rays, and not surprisingly these occurred in the same building. There was a short wait while the radiologist came from Chapala, not far away.

Kelly did turn out to have one broken rib, so he was given a brace. The broken rib was just a little higher up than the original x-ray had shown. There were some other things that the doctor wants to monitor closely, though nothing likely to be serious, and we will be going back tomorrow morning. That’s a Sunday. Kelly will be examined tomorrow by another doctor, and so Dr. Garcia asked the other doctor to examine Kelly today so he’d know how to compare Kelly’s reactions to being poked and prodded (my phrase, not his) on the two days.

Again, we were impressed with the skill. We had been warned that this clinic sees a lot of the local foreign population from Ajijic and other town along Lake Chapala, and so prices would be higher. The cost today was $35 US for the doctor, $90 US for several x-rays, and about $20 US for the brace Kelly was given.

Update to follow. We will be staying here for at least another month, for Kelly to heal.

4 Comments from the old blog:

• At January 08, 2006 9:00 AM, Anonymous said…

  What a saga – I’m really glad Kelly is OK – sort of. Not too long ago I cracked a rib. It is a long healing process that includes a considerable amount of pain. Please take it easy my friend – we aren’t getting any younger and falling off buildings is more of a kid’s game ;-)
  Rest easy-
  John & Anita

• At January 08, 2006 9:18 AM, BillieS said…

  Rosana, I’m so glad that Kelly wasn’t hurt any worse than this. It could have been much worse. We have a friend here who fell about six feet and had a crushed wrist and broken leg. He was sent to Queretaro for treatment and he too, has had excellent care. He was in the Angeles hospital in Queretaro for several days after surgery.
  The lesson is, for all of us who are getting a little older….stay off roofs!
  Take care.
  Billie

• At January 09, 2006 9:32 AM, Rosana Hart said…

  Thanks, both of you! Kelly continues to heal quickly. He won’t stay off roofs, I’m sure, but he’ll be more careful.

  Rosana

• At January 10, 2006 3:23 PM, Vence said…

  I’m very glad Kelly is on the mend and thanks for a very interesting insight in the Mexican health care system. I had a motorcycle accident in the US ten years ago when I didn’t have insurance and the ambulance ride alone cost me over $200.

  Take care,
  Vence

Mexican Emergency Health Care: A Personal Look is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

I wasn’t sick, but I had a prescription that I wanted to refill. Most prescriptions can be refilled at any Mexican pharmacy, but not mine, as it was for the generic version of Valium, and that requires a doctor’s prescription. Sometimes I get freaked out by a lot of wild traffic, and I had discovered last year that a little tranquilizer helped. I don’t use it when I’m driving, just when Kelly is driving our motorhome in heavy traffic or winding mountain roads.

So when I was told that I’d need to go to a doctor, I thought, fine. It seemed like a worthwhile adventure, and better when not sick than if actually feeling bad. A Mexican friend of mine here in Guanajuato recommended a doctor and showed me last Sunday where the doctora’s office was. (Doctora means she’s a woman doctor.)

We went to a shop that seemed to sell bootlegged CDs and a few other things, on the main street near a major bus stop beyond the market. We walked through the shop, which was a kind of hallway, veered left, went up a few stairs, and were in another hallway with some office doors opening off one side. These were the offices of two doctors. On the other side of the hall were some 15 or 20 attached chairs. My friend told me that the thing to do was to ask who was last when I arrived. I noted that the doctora my friend knew worked Monday through Saturday from 3PM to 9PM. The other doctor worked mornings, and they took turns working Sunday mornings.

So this afternoon I arrived at the hallway around 3:30 and asked who was last. A friendly woman said she was, and waved at a seat next to her. So I sat down. There were over a dozen people sitting, but soon I realized that I was probably only about 6th in line as most were groups. And the line moved fast… a mother and her daughter took 7 minutes, an elderly couple took about 15 minutes, another mother-daughter combo took 8 minutes, and so on.

I began chatting with the woman next to me, who was holding a sleeping seven-year-old boy. He had come home from school not feeling well. I asked if the doctora was a pediatrician and the woman said yes, but she sees patients of all ages. I explained that normally in the U.S., you had to call up and make an appointment, and the woman said that for specialists in Mexico you do that. She added that both this doctora and the man who worked mornings were very good.

Soon it was her turn, and then my turn. As I walked in, I saw a white-clad woman of perhaps 35 or 40, sitting at a desk in a small office which had an examining table, a scale, some cabinets, and a few other things. It did not contain a telephone.

If the doctora spoke any English, she did not try it out on me. She asked my name, and neatly wrote it down on a notepad where each patient got one line for their name and any notes she made. I pulled out my old prescription from the U.S. and explained in a slightly embarrassed manner that I was sometimes afraid of traffic. We exchanged a few words about the situation, and she wrote me a prescription for one box of 5mg Valium. She added that she was only allowed to prescribe one box at a time. I thanked her, paid her my fee in cash, and left. I had noticed a sign in the hallway asking people to pay with exact change.

My fee for an office visit with an MD? 50 pesos, just over $4.50 U.S.

I went to the Farmacia Similares next door, but they didn’t have it and pointed me to the Farmacia San Francis de Asis we could see across the street. They didn’t have it either, and phoned their other store, which was also out. I tried another pharmacy next door to the Saint Francis and the man said they had it only in 10 mg, but not in 5mg. There were a lot of pharmacies in the area because it’s close to the Red Cross hospital. There are also several funeral homes in the area, presumbly for the same reason.

Just beyond the hospital there is a big chain grocery store, the Comercial Mexicana. I went to their pharmacy, and the woman who helped me there was a treasure. When she didn’t have my prescription in 5mg, she looked it up and said it was no longer available in that size in Mexico.

She suggested that I go back to the doctora and get a prescription for 10mg, which is widely available. I explained that I was really only taking 2 or 2.5 mg, and cutting 10mg 4 ways might not be very accurate. She grasped that before I had finished stumbling around in Spanish to say it, and pulled out a much newer version of a book the doctora had looked something up in — probably a Mexican equivalent to our PDR — and found that there was another brand which came in 5mg and was the same thing. She was out of stock, but expected to get more tomorrow after 11.

I asked her advice on a matter of etiquette. Did I need to wait in line all over again in the hallway for the doctora, or could I ask the next person in line if I could pop in for a minute? She said I could. I was glad, because when I got back there, the line was a good bit longer. The next person in line did say it was okay, so I popped in and the doctora exchanged my useless prescription for a new one. She commented that it would actually be better because there were twice as many pills in the box for the other brand.

So I have my prescription. And one of these days, I’m sure it will get filled.

[Update: I went back to the pharmacy, encountered a woman as curt as the other had been helpful, and had my prescription in hand in three minutes for a price of about $16 US.]

I must say I am impressed with how efficiently this system provides basic and affordable health care. My price for the visit was 50 pesos, but there was a sign in the hall that the cost of a consultation was 20 pesos. I think that the doctora said that I was paying more because it was required for a controlled substance prescription — this was one of those times when I would have had to question her more to be sure that I had understood her Spanish, and it didn’t matter enough to me to do so. If Mexico has many more simple doctor’s offices with inexpensive visits, we could sure learn something! If I had had anything more complicated to explain, I would have sought out a doctor who spoke English.

Visit to a Doctor in Mexico is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Anyway, several days ago I felt quesy and soon developed a mild case of diarrhea, with a delicate stomach, fatigue, headache… hard to tell if it was a flu or the turistas. I took it easy, ate more yogurt than usual, and yesterday morning I woke up thinking I was about over it.

Wrong. The diarrhea kicked into high gear. So I pulled out my trusty People’s Guide to Mexico and scanned through a long list of things that Carl Franz had tried. Best of all, he said, was Pepto-Bismol. So I got some at the pharmacy in a Soriana grocery store and tried it. And it worked great! I was way better by late afternoon and continue to be better today.  I also got a bottle of electrolite (that’s the Spanish spelling) there too, so it may have helped with my feeling better fast.

Naturally, if I had any clues that I might be dealing with something serious, I would have gone to a doctor — or asked for one to make a house call to our RV — seriously, they do that for less cost than you could imagine — but in this case it wasn’t needed.

I think that eating the extra yogurt may have been a mistake, as it turned out not to be live cultured, so it wasn’t helping my digestion any and the sugar in it was probably feeding the bad bugs. However, in Mexican grocery stores you can find yogurt that advertises it has live cultures. There’s also something called Yakult that is a kind of probiotic, I think — that is, it helps your digestive tract. I’ve seen it in Mexican grocery stores, the supermarket kind, near the yogurts.

Hope I didn’t gross anyone out too much with these details. But the turistas can be a very real part of traveling away from home, a matter of adjustment for your digestive tract to the bacteria it finds. Once Kelly got it when we returned to the US after several months in Mexico.

Enough of this.

A Tourist with the Turistas is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico