How the system REALLY works - or not.

Something that has always bothered me about Mexico is the number of people standing on street corners and public markets begging for money "for their operation".    Having been born in a country  where health care is a given,  I really did believe that those people begging for medical money had, in fact found a way to use their disabilities as a source of income.   After this mornings conversation with our gardener, I am not so sure.

It seems he and his wife are caught in a loop of red tape which I will try to explain.  You may think you are reading Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First" routine but honestly, no one can make stuff like this up.

You will recall, our first and unsuccessful attempt to give blood was in the Seguro Popular in San Pancho, in the state of Nayarit, which is the home state of our gardener and his wife.

Due to a medical emergency which could not be dealt with in San Pancho, his wife was rushed to the Pitillal branch of Seguro Popular, which is in the state of Jalisco.

At this bright, friendly hospital, which I quite liked, our gentle gardener and his wife were lead to believe that they would perform the operation to remove her tumour once they had donated the allotted blood.  We left the hospital feeling confident that our blood would complete the requirements and the operation would proceed.

OMG, not so fast.!!!  Now that the Jalisco branch of the hospital has our blood, and our gardener and his wife have exhausted ALL avenues for donors, the powers that be have decided that her operation is not urgent enough and she must go back to hr home state and the San Pancho hospital to have her surgery there.  

Uh-oh, a red light.  Had to know it was coming.

One would think that isn't that much of a problem, all the blood has been collected and credited to the patients name, so.... they can just ship it out to the other hospital.   I think most reasonable people would deem this a logical solution to a rather small problem.

Trouble is, the hospital in San Pancho does not seem to want to do the operation.   They have even gone so far as to issue a false document stating our gardeners wife had been scheduled for an operation in April for which she failed to show up.  

Our gardener swears there was no appointment in April, and I believe him.  Why would the hospital have scheduled an operation before enough blood had been collected?   Predictably, some administrative dummy in Jalisco has decided to accept this piece of garbage as the truth, which is complicating matters even further.

Needless to say, our conversation with our gardener this morning was not the positive one we had been anticipating and because he was so angry, he was speaking so rapidly it was difficult to follow the whole story.   Lucky for me, our maid was also here and she was able to fill me in on some of the details I was unable to get.

Spiny - how our gardener felt this morning!

She tells me he will go to the Recursos Humanos, which, as I understand it, is a Human Rights commission to see if anything can be done.   Hopefully, they will help him, but I fear things will just drag on so long that it will be faster for us to just wait until we are able to donate blood again!

There are times when Mexico really shines and there are so many things that make this country great, but honestly, Mexico, this time, you have failed miserably.   Shame on a hospital system that treats its patients so poorly, and shame on the government for allowing it to happen.

Strong words for an outsider, but, based on this event, I do feel that my opinion is justified.

Fat Cats looking down on the general population?

If you like this post, please share, share, share.  We are working to build an audience and will appreciate your help.

A Fresh Start! Right after we tie up the loose ends!

So, it has been a very long time since we last wrote anything in our blog.  Our apologies to all of our readers.  It wasn’t that we forgot about you, but other parts of our life just took control over our time, and our vision for our blog just kind of faded into the distance.  Even more truthfully, when I wrote the last installment of our blog (nearly 2 years ago!)  I had hoped to give you all a positive and glowing review of the consulta system that seemingly all drugstores (farmacias) here have.    Turns out, I was not able to do that, and for that reason, I kept putting the next installment off … for so long, that eventually, it seemed ridiculous to even start it up again.  But, one of the results of trying things can be failure, so….

picking up where we left off, I was struggling with an ear infection had already visited one consultoria at one farmacia and was being treated at a second farmacia by a new “doctor”…

The first option, was a series of 3 shots in my behind, and was greatly encouraged by my husband,  “The Sadist”,  as the most efficient and effective way to clear the infection. 

In the end (pun intended),  it was determined that the injections were neither efficient, nor effective.   3 days, times 20 minutes driving, plus 15 minutes or longer waiting to be seen by the doctor, the cost of gas and $250 pesos for the meds…time, gas and money all wasted.

The doctor was incredulous but checked his enormous ARSEnal (read ego) of knowledge and information and came up with a different set of meds that would certainly deal with this nasty infection.    So, another 200 pesos for meds (they ALWAYS prescribe 3), more driving and waiting and gas for something else that did not work. 

You would think I would have learned something by then, but instead, I allowed him to send me for lab work.   Third times a charm, right?

I don’t remember what all that entailed, but it meant more driving, more waiting and several days for the results to come in.  These, I dutifully carried back to the same doctor at the same farmacia,  who then prescribed yet another volley of medication (yes, 3 items again), again, these cost about 200 pesos. 

Assuming that he would know what he was doing now that he had some medical jargon from a lab in front of him, I bought the new meds.   Colour me stupid, I was somewhat surprised when they did not work. 

By now, 3 weeks has passed, and I had spent $600 pesos on meds that didn’t work and another $400 pesos for the lab tests, plus I had been stuck in the bum 3 times!!  For nothing!!    $1.000 pesos, total loss of my dignity, Lord knows how much waiting time, and still no sign of improvement to my ear.

So, I gave up my dream of finding a good doctor at the farmacias and went to a specialist in PV, near Plaza Caracol.  He took one look in my ear, laughed and left the room.  He came back with a rather large syringe and a glass of nicely warmed water.  Within 2 minutes, the blockage in my ear was destroyed and I could hear again.   Turns out it wasn’t even an infection that we were dealing with.   The Specialist’s fee, $750.00 pesos and no meds. 

Lesson learned.  I have to admit I was highly disappointed because I so wanted to be able to tell you all the consultas work.  But for me, the truth is, that it didn’t.