´ó¿§¸£ÀûÓ°Ôº

DominicanadaMike wrote:

This is only an opinion but I don't sugar coat things.  Sorry for that.  20 minutes is a death sentence in a real emergency situation.  Having medical professionals in my family (Dominican) and watching them die at a young age because there is inadequate knowledge and care and inadequate facilities to help them and being a Doctor and also having watched friends die here and seeing the lack of proper professional care is simply a red flag for me.  I am not saying that there are not good people or good facilities here, there are, I am simply saying it's not North America by a long shot.  All of the insurance and money will not help you if you suddenly have a heart attack or a stroke.  20 minutes from a good hospital here means nothing.  During rush hour that could easily become 60 minutes and in fact you need 3 minutes or less to be life saving!

Everything you said is true, DominicanadaMike.    But there's also some perspective required.

We currently live in fairly rural SE Idaho, outside of Idaho Falls.  How little of a town do we live in?  Three stoplights-little, and people complained about all the traffic that required them to add that third light.  My neighbors are :  North, Cows.  West, Hay and Wheat.  South, Horses.  East, okay, I got some actual human beings on the next lot over, but we're all on acre+ lots, so we don't have to smell each other's BO. 

We have excellent hospitals both to the North and South of us.  However, both are about 25 minutes away in ideal conditions.  Add in some (mild) traffic, snow or ice, a few accidents getting in the way, and you could easily see trips of 35-55 minutes. 
>>  Heck, almost every winter we have at least one blizzard or ice storm that totally stops all ground traffic for a couple of days. 
>> Now, we understand the weather and most of us are pretty well-prepared for it.  Outside of the towns, most families have at least one 4WD truck, or maybe an AWD Ute. 

There are Life Flight medical helicopters, which greatly reduce the travel time but also are pretty darn expensive if you don't have advance in one of their service plans.  The option exists. 

Why live so far out in the boonies??  We like the quiet rural life.  We like not being on top of our neighbors, or them being on top of us.  Folks are nicer out here, BTW.  Most of my (military) career was spent in fairly heavily-populated regions, and we now kinda shudder when we meet people from the places we used to be assigned...because we realized we used to be, well, kind edgy just like them. 

Now, in Idaho Falls, there are two major hospitals.  One is REALLY excellent.  The other is, well, kind of mediocre; they also have a VERY bad record of MRSA infections.  I really don't understand how they can stay open. 
>>  My point is that there is plenty of average-or-less medical care in the USA, too. 

Hey, I've got some health problems myself.  I won't burden everyone on here with those gory details, but a couple are serious, several are long-term & not-going-away.  I do what I can to keep my health up. 
>>  Besides, I've caught my docs here (in Idaho and the USA) making PLENTY of mistakes.  No, not all.  But one has to stay on top of their conditions and make sure the doctors are on the right track.
>> Years ago, I learned this the hard way.  I had a small problem area on my face, I was concerned it might be cancerous because it wouldn't heal. 
>>> My super-duper well-awarded premium doc looked at it, pronounced it as nothing, and then derided me as paranoid for even considering it was a problem. 
  >>>  Five months later we moved to...rural Idaho.  I went to a Physician's Assistant that specialized in skin care in a town of 35,000, and he diagnosed it as probable cancer in about 30 seconds.  Removal and biopsy followed immediately, and lab tests proved it was cancerous.  Fortunately, the skin cancer had not spread...no thanks to my high-priced doctor in Colorado Springs.
>>> Thus, I concluded that the US has its fair share of medical idiots, too. 

But in the end, if the Big One hits me out here in the country, well hey, that's okay.  I'll die with a smile on my face.      I've lived a good life, and enjoyed the fruits of my industry for many years.

And I imagine it's much the same way in the DR.  People love being out in the country, on the  beaches or in the mountains.  Qualify of life is higher, pace is slower, etc., etc. 

That's my two cents.   Now, if I had a serious heart condition or prone to strokes, I'd maybe want to live much closer to a major hospital, if only to ensure I get more time with my extended family before passing on.  But the bolt-out-of-the-blue heart attack that kills me with no warning?  I'm not worrying about it. 

BUT, where you could help me/us out, is offering some specifics on:
>> WHAT clinics or hospitals to avoid?  Any with high MRSA rates?  Any with poor outcome rates on heart surgeries?  Any oncology clinics better or worse than the others?
>> What conditions to not even try to get treated in the DR (sounds like sleep apnea is one)?
>>  Etc., etc.   I don't know whether DR health care has any publicly available data on their outcome percentages, but it does sound like they need to.  So...perhaps we could encourage that? 

Okay, thanks for reading.  I don't mean any disrespect to anyone, just offering a little perspective on US medical care vs. DR Medical care, to the extent my knowledge permits.

Best wishes to all,


Jim
ExpatRusher