One of the many beauties of Mexico is the medical system.We have beat this drum quite often, and it remains true.
We just received a low-end physical that did not entail a doctor visit. Can you do that up north?
Now we admit this checkup did not cover everything by any means, but it was simple, fast, inexpensive, and it covered most things that concern us.
Which are:
1. Cholesterol level, both total, high-density, low-density and very low-density. Yes, four results.
2. Blood sugar.
3. Triglyceride level.
4. Blood pressure.
5. Pulse rate.
6. Blood in the poop, a colon cancer indicator. And, yes, we know it´s an old-fashioned technique. Peor es nada.
Here´s what you do: Stop by a lab* downtown at 8 a.m. (before cafecito and croissantito), and have blood taken.
No waiting nor appointment required.
Leave the poop sample in the little plastic jar picked up the previous day.
If you get there at 8, your results can be picked up beween 1 and 2 p.m. that same day. Total bill: 520 pesos, which is about $46. We check pulse and blood pressure with an electronic gadget we keep at the Ranchito.
The results show that everything is A-OK.
Amazingly, this lab will actually send a nurse to your house to collect your bodily fluids and products. How about that?
Yes, laboratory house calls! But we drove there.
We also could have gotten a PSA test for the prostate, but the last two full checkups, done in Morelia at Star Medica in 2004 and 2007, indicated that little baby was a happy button.
Fit for a rampaging teenager. Well, almost.
The PSA test is highly controversial in the medical community with many believing it may open a can of worms, especially in older men, that perhaps should be left unopened.
We'll take a look at that next time, in six months. Bragging moment: Yours truly, age 64, weighs what he did at 21 and has been doing exercise in a gym regularly for almost 30 years.
And La Guapa Señora, 16 years his junior and a regular gym visitor herself for 20 years, keeps a nasty gleam in his eye.
* We prefer Laboratorio Montes de Oca, which has a number of outlets here. We use the one on Calle Ibarra. Nice folks.
15 comments:
What a place. You can conduct your own physicals and prescribe your own medications. It must be nice to be in loving hands.
True, because no hands are more loving than our very own.
Hmmm, I think my leg weights more that you did at 21.
Perhaps the scale should be where I start my medical check up.
Todd
A "nasty gleam" is better then a cataract.........much.
Felipe, at the Lab, do you request un descuento INAPAM para Personas de Mayor Edad?
You DO have your credencial, ¿sí?
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
Well, now I´m on those proverbial horns of a dilemma. Old-folks card or nasty gleam? Which way do I turn? I think I´ll go both ways.
Yes, I have an INAPAM card, but I never think to use it. Had it for a number of years, and the only time it gets used is when my lovely bride notices a sign saying they accept it. I would never see the sign nor ask about it. No telling how much money I´ve left on the table.
And it never occurred to me that the clinic would give me a discount for that. They do that?
Now let´s get back to the nasty gleams and my svelte physique.
Todd, you´ve dropped some. There is value in that. However, I did notice the other day as we were walking around your neighborhood (you, me and the Great Ransom Peek of Morelia, Michoacán) that you were huffing more than either of the other two individuals involved, both of whom are older than you, especially me.
So get back on that exercise plan, or whatever it was you were doing. It was working.
Poor America...
We can't evaluate our urine without an MD's approval and large bill $$.
Soon our personal information and test results will be computerized and kept for posterity.
How nice to check in--find out--and go about your business.
Enhorabuena Mexico!
Lilly
of the far North
Poor America...
We can't evaluate our urine without an MD's approval and large bill $$.
Soon our personal information and test results will be computerized and kept for posterity.
How nice to check in--find out--and go about your business.
Enhorabuena Mexico!
Lilly
of the far North
Lilly, I sometimes tend to drone on about the Mexican health system. It is sooooo nice. What it is more than anything is sensible. And affordable out of pocket. And, if you´re poor, it can be free. But the free part is a little dicey as far as equipment and supplies go, but it´s better than nothing.
If all else were equal except the health systems, I would stay in Mexico. Simply for the medical system. Great, great, great.
"Sensible" seems to have been dropped from the American dictionary...hopefully to reappear one day soon.
Lilly
"And it never occurred to me that the clinic would give me a discount for that. They do that?"
You bet. Not a big discount, but something.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
We come from different worlds....the single biggest factor for me in choosing to go back to the UK, which will happen one day, is health care. I prefer free and not dicey. I'm picky, I know...
(And then there are the taxes...I know that too. But it doesn't register.)
British health care is hardly free. You just pay in a more circular manner. Those are called, of course, taxes. They may not register now, but they will.
They sure will.
No it won't Don Felipe. I'm a glass half full type of person. I look at the bottom line, what I've actually got to spend. I bypass the bit about what got taken away almost entirely. No point worrying about your payslip. If taxes in any country get too visibly high, they just dump them elsewhere, less visibly. I did mention the taxes anyway...
Point is, senor, the health service will always be there for me, whether I've paid my taxes or not. And the treatment I get will be no different either way.
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