Do you have an emergency medical plan? I didn't.

[DonJuane]

I share this story not as a hard luck story but to ask if you have an emergency medical plan. We are all invincible and live forever, right? I knew I was, as I had been traveling Mexico for over 30 years just happy go lucky without ever a thought of what to do if my luck changed. My awakening happened this past week.

I had a relatively bad case of "the bug" but was on meds and on this day I was in a rush to get from San Miguel to GTO and along with the rush I wasn't drinking the water I should. I grabbed the last seat on the bus headed to GTO and sat for an abnormally long time at the bus station before we left. The AC wasn't working and it was stifling with all those people. We finally pulled out and before too long I broke into a sweat like I had never experienced. About 20 minutes later I was falling unconscious. Trembling and with little muscle control, I made it up to the driver, beat on the door yelling yo es muy infirma until he let me in. I begged he call the ambulance and he said there was no cell service. I fell to the floor in the stair well but finally I had the wherewithal to pull out my phone (Telcel thankfully) and saw that I had 1 bar signal. I dialed 911 and handed the phone to the driver. With a lot of huffs and puffs, he finally snapped to the emergency, covering me in gel alcohol while a young female medical student rushed to the front to my aid and began pouring bottles of water down me.

The ambulance finally arrived and I was asked where I wanted to go. WHAT a decision. By a miracle one of the three medics spoke perfect English and we tried to make the best decision. I was delirious at the time and so disoriented trying to pick from the three choices she gave (somewhere where you will have to wait a long time if not life threatening, and the other two will be very expensive). So I randomly picked the new emergency clinic back in San Miguel.

Now bottom line is, these people saved my life. Still it is not without note that I make a statement here about their services. While this is a full service facility (UniMedHS), they don't require a family member be present to serve as your night nurse like a most Mexican hospitals, so it ends up being a full facility patient drop off service. The service is state of the art, you are assigned a full time nurse during your stay, one which will likely be attending to you alone.

They started me immediately with an IV and into that apparatus, administered secondary injections almost on the hour. I was extremely apprehensive about what I was receiving because it was perhaps 10 times what I had received in US hospitals. I asked (in Spanish) what was the contents of each. Most were "for pain" even though I had not complained to the doctor of pain. After about an hour after being outfitted and placed in a gown with an IV, I was asked to make a 10,000 peso deposit. I asked if the service was really going to cost that much. I was assured I would have refunded money if my treatment "was not required to continue". The next morning I begged to be released after having a new lease on life and was presented two full sheet lists of every single thing I had received, which came to 11,500 pesos.

So for a fraction of what I would have been charged in the US, it still wasn't along the lines of other medical experiences I had previously received in Mexico. Now I am by no means ungrateful for being able to again log into this forum nor am I able to explain the thoughts that come into one's mind after having been given the gift of life for a second or third time. However for posterity and for the benefit of others who may have to make a similar decision in the future, I am hoping that this information will serve as an inspiration for you all to give serious thought to what you might do in a similar situation.

If you have any info on Medical facilities here, it might be a good idea to share it. Had the same thing happened in GTO, I'd likely be up, well you know the name of that creek.

Feel free to share your experiences and suggestions. It's time, at least for me, to find out just a little more about what medical services are available here.