A Trip To The Emergency Room

I have to say that we have been very lucky health wise since we have come here.  We have never had a  health concern that going to a doctor at Farmacia Similares has not been able to help with.

  Roy has been feeling yucky off and on the last few days.  One day he is fine and then next day not so great.

Last night he was in a lot of pain, neither one of us thought that it was a heart attack; but he was in quite a bit of pain so he decided he needed to go to emergency at the hospital.  Roy has no health care here as he has never wanted to sign up for it.  We decided to go to the Hospital Pabellon Guadalupe and just in case I couldn't understand everything the doctor said we asked our landlady to go with us.  Our landlady does not speak English; but she and I communicate very well, we are both used to each others speech and if I don't understand one word she uses she will dumb it down.

We arrived at the hospital around 5 PM and were signed in and told to sit down, we barely got sat down and they called us into a examining room.  They asked some questions, told Roy to lay down on the bed.  He was having a lot of pain breathing so before checking too many things out they asked about allergies and immediately started an IV with pain medication in it.  Within 10 minutes he was comfortable enough to lay down and the Dr. checked him out more thoroughly.  He decided that Roy had Gastritis, that the parasite killer had not worked for him as it was bacteria born.  He continued to check on him and chat with our landlady and I until Roy was pain free.  He then wrote out a bunch of prescriptions and sent us on our way.

After heading to the drugstore and filling the prescriptions we were back at home.  Roy was feeling much better and pain free.  The whole trip took about an hour and a half.

This morning he is his normal self, I am happy to say.

We had never been to an emergency room here before; but after this experience I am comfortable with the fact that I could understand what was being said and with what was happening and if it happens again we will do it on our own.

Now for the nitty gritty, the costs.

To see the Dr. on a Saturday evening at emergency cost 300 pesos.

The hospital costs were 911.28 pesos  (cost of medication in the IV, materials, etc.)

So the total cost at the hospital was:  1211.28 pesos or approx. $ 101.63

Cost of the medications at the pharmacy was:  655.90 pesos or approx. $ 55.03  some of the meds. are for 5 days and some are for 10 days supply.

So the total cost in pesos was 1867.18 or approx. $ 156.66

All in all a good experience if going to the emergency room can be a good experience.  Happy with all the care and procedures that were done.  Doctor was in no rush and explained everything very well.  Nurses and Dr. were very good and we both felt very comfortable with the level of care.