Health & Wellness Best Posts in Thread: Health and Hospitals

As someone who has a background in health care in the UK, Australia and worked in areas around Asia where we had to use local hospitals I have this to offer.
Healthcare in any country has great variables good doctors bad doctors good hospitals lousy hospitals.

Expats seem to have no plans what to do in the event of an medical emergency, some come here with insufficient funds to manage serious medical illness. Medical insurance or having an emergency fund seems to get ignored.
The gold standard these days for a heart attack is fast movement from emergency room to the angiography suite for insertion of stents to open the coronary arteries.
Angiography is only available in Cebu or Manila and I dont know whether they follow worlds best practice in swift transfer to the angiography suite for treatment by an interventional cardiologist.
However......clot busting drugs for treatment of a heart attack have been for 15-20 years and if given in a timely manner can clear blood flow to coronary arteries in under an hour. Country paramedics in Victoria Australia give it on route to a hospital.
So why Silliman hospital cant treat a heart attack.......I dont know its not difficult the drugs might be a bit expensive.
Anybody in Siquijor .........good luck I have had an opportunity to see whats in their hospital and an expat I heard of who had a serious injury they refused to treat but did give the name of a boatman who could ferry him to Dumaguete. Subsequently following his CT scan he was transferred to Cebu as Silliman has no neurological facilities.

So I would urge people to have a plan that they discuss with friends and family have some money stashed away and have some idea of who they can contact for emergency transport. Rhoyle airlines at Dumaguete will fly you to Cebu or Manila for a price. Establish which hospitals you would like to go to.......all in Manila and Cebu is not good I went to the Holy Child in Cebu had a quick look at the Resuscitation area -no space and no equipment and thought ...........good luck to anybody hoping to be resuscitated there.

 

If I took all my meds as prescribed, by the end of the day it would be 28 pills. I take significantly less than that depending on the day.

Western doctors are certainly impressed with the perks offered by the Pharmaceutical Companies.... Oh wait, I ment effectiveness, yup that's it, effectiveness of Big Pharma...

 

I have faith and respect for some of the doctors here.
Brian I'll tell you about my experience here. My adventure started in Bahrain. I went to the specialist hospital in Bahrain because I could hardly walk due to severe back pain. They were no help whatsoever. I did walk away with a prescription for Celebrex (bad stuff that was). The Orthopod here told me to ditch the Celebrex as it banned in Europe and N. America.
My wife (GF at the time) dragged me to see the local Orthpod. He poked, he prodded, he twisted stuff, the only thing he didn't do was make me cry.
Day 1 he gave me some drug or other and said come back tomorrow, day 2 same-same, day 3 same-same. On Day 4 I asked him "do you have a plan?". He said YES I DO !!!, if the problem was "A" drug #1 would have fixed your back, If the problem was "B" drug #2 would....etc. He explained his approach was the cheapest method to diagnose the problem. In the west doctors/nurses would have crapped all over him. I actually thought his approach made a lot of sense. He couldn't fix my problem with a drug so he sent me off to Cebu for an MRI. The cost was something like $250 USD.
We got back to Dumaguete with the MRI pictures. Doc looked them over and said; "well you have a disk that's flattened and a couple are herniated so the bones are pressing on the nerves. I looked at him and said "WOW THAT'S GREAT! Can you remove the disks and fuse a few vertebrate?" I was serious, I mean he could make the pain go away. He looked over his glasses at me and said yeah I can do the surgery`BUT ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR F,,N MIND``. He said he had 6-8 things he would rather try before surgery.
To make a long story short he sent me off for physiotherapy to strengthen my stomach muscles which keeps the spine from pinching the nerves.
So I do believe some of the doctors here are pretty good.
This post is a little long already. Some other time I`ll tell you about my step daughter spending time with an older man...the Neuro Surgeon.

 

When you live in Philippines, even Dumaguete, this is a problem. My friend died in Silliman Hospital because he suffered a heart attack, (in the hospital due where he was admitted due to flu-like conditions), and the doctor told me they do not have the facilities to properly care for a heart attack victim and he was not stable enough to transport to a better quality hospital (such as airplane to St Lukes in Manila).

So he lived for about 10 days in ICU where he slowly deteriorated and the doctor said, (in English and while I was there listening), to his live in partner that "he is just old and there is nothing more we can do for him." Tom had just had his 70th birthday and was otherwise in good health. Does that seem old to you? In a first world country there are many survivors of heart attacks at age 70, especially when they occur in the hospital.

Thus it is my opinion that if quality of hospital is a primary consideration in your choice of where to live you can only consider Manila, Cebu and possibly Davao (have not checked that one out).

 

This is not isolated to just 3rd World Hospitals, in Australia 18,000+ people die each year and a further 50,000+ are injured to poor Hospital care. I am one of those statistics after a leading Orthopedic Doctor who was the head of the Hospital at that time bungled my operation, at first operating on me with too little anesthetic causing me to be alert during the initial operation, then shutting down my heart when the Anesthetist overdosed me trying to put me back to sleep! After recovering from that, I found he had put my leg together wrong meaning my right foot pointed almost to a right angle to the right when I laid down or tried to stand, my right arm which he re-broke and reset had a kink in it and I was given bad blood which gave me Hep B which has badly affected my Liver. After infection set in the steel plate had to be removed resulting in my leg bone remaining broken now since 1985.

And no; I could not sue the Hospital because I signed forms letting them off of the hook should something go wrong in their care/operations... However, the Hospital tried suing me to recover costs of operations, bed stay etc forcing me into a failed expensive (on my part) attempt to sue another party, the only ones to get rich were the Lawyers involved, only once they walked away after receiving Government funding for 8 years did the Hospital drop its case against me...

My Wife worries about me here in the Philippines thinking I will get far better care if we lived in the City closer to the Hospital, but I accept what may come as I have no faith here or back home in Oz that I will receive life saving care from any of the Medical systems on offer, and IF it happens (life saving care) then it is a bonus, come what may...

The World Today - Medical mistakes: a silent epidemic in Australian hospitals 10/06/2013

 

Every 3 Months at SUMC, up to now no problems, My Doc seems Good, Listens to me and that I like.

 

Not at All, I am 70 next year and being a Stroke survivor has had it's own Problems yet still fine Fine (as of now that is) but we are quite a few here on DI that are over 70 and I am almost sure we will all strive to carry on. It does worry me a little on reading this post though that a hospital like SMU Cannot cope with an issue that is an everyday occurrence here in this fair City I don't have any statistics on this but I would guess Heart disease and/or plain coronaries are one of the biggest killers here

 

All of this makes me wonder, is the hospital to blame or the poor health of the foreigner not getting regular checkups then hoping to being saved in a third world country when the grim reaper comes calling. Obviously, Dumaguete does not provide world class health care. Try and pay fo St. Lukes

 

Yeah I have to wear built-up shoe. Had all made up in the UK before I came to pH. The shoe repair men at the Dumagete market might be able to help.

 

Each to our own Davy but Mine has done a d*mn Good job on me over the Last 5+ years