Right up front I want to say that the health care workers in Cabo were wonderful and did pretty good considering the equipment they had. Their hospitals would be great for broken bones and such, but for anything potentially life threatening - get back home as soon as you safely can.
The language issues: This is hard to discribe because most of them spoke english, but they chatted among themselves in spanish and I felt left out. When we've been in the hospitals here at home, we learn so much just by eaves dropping.
Equipment: Everything was older and donated from the US. The EKG machine rarely worked. The room they moved Dave to had ICU stenciled on the foot of the bed, but otherwise was a bare room. The heart monitor showed him as a flat line half the time, and by the time they finally hooked him up to it (6 hours later) he was up moving around and feeling good.
Cleanliness: It was a very clean place. I felt comfortable with how they cleaned. The thing that bothered me the most was the lack of using gloves. To draw blood they would swab the area and then tap it with bare fingers to raise the vein.
Finances: Near the end of the first day we were asked to pay a $2000 deposit. They do not deal with any insurance and want cash up front. Our insurance will re-imburse us, but that will take awhile. 36 hours in the hospital cost us $6000 USD total.
Air ambulance: These people were fantastic. The company is Med-Care and when they came to the hospital to transport us is when I finally started feeling comfortable. They used gloves, their EKG worked - it just felt more like home. I had talked to our insurance compancy and they cover air ambulance, BUT again we had to pay in full up front and will be reimbursed. This company does not work with the insurance companies. Ground tranportation $950 and the plane part was $24,000 USD.
What I will travel with next time:
A large balance credit card. It's hard to come up with $31,000 in a couple hours and we had to use three cards to get it. Everyone wanted cash up front even though we have insurance that will pay.
I will talk to locals about hospitals. Two TA people aked me how in the world we ended up THERE. But we used the physician contracted with our hotel and we ended up where he worked.
A phone card that works in the US. In San Diego we had little cell phone coverage. I had to go outside at both the hospital and the hotel to use my cell.
Actual prescription bottles. I kept telling Dave we needed these, but he was sure a list was fine. The bottles would have helped a lot.
Phone numbers for our doctors and pharmacy. I was able to get them, but it took awhile.
A real purse. I use a travel tote for flying and then all around Cabo I just use beach totes. It was weird using beach totes in San Diego, so next time I'll have a little purse that packs flat - just in case. I know - this is a weird one, but important to me.
I know this is long and I'm sure I've forgotten something. I'll be happy to answer any questions.
