Once again I turn the pen over to the author of an extraordinary story of Cruz Roja and the Mexican medical system in action. This is the second half of last months edited version of Jay Raymond White's report on his heart attack in Ajijic just months ago.
Once I was "stabilized," I got another ambulance ride-this one to Hospital Civil Nuevo in Guadalajara. It didn't take us long to get there either. The head of cardiology met my gurney as the Angels wheeled me into the ER, and he led us to an examining room. He put a stethoscope to my chest and listened; placed it on a different spot and listened again. Then he removed it and pointedly said to me, "Mr. White, your heart is dying. Do you have MSS insusrance."
"No, I don't," I said, regretting it. "I've only been in Mexico a couple of months, so I'm not eligible. I'm afraid my American Social Security doesn't provide much money, either-no where near what I'm going to need for this. I reckon I'll have to try and get back to the states, where I have Medicare."
"I see. I have talked to Dr. Soltero (Polo) in Ajijic. Because of your poverty and his professional recommendation that you be admitted here for care, I can offer you two courses of medical action. We can treat your condition with drugs and medications alone and hope for the best; or, you can enter a program I have initiated here to study a new medication for heart attack victims. After you have signed the forms, you will be taken to Hospital Civil Viejo and undergo angioplasty. A stent will be inserted to keep the artery open and blood going to your heart. If you accept, you would be a volunteer in the program. The cost Two-thousand pesos. One-thousand will be forgiven because you're a volunteer. I will personally loan you the other thousand and you can pay me back as you can. The medication, of course, because it is experimental, is free. What do you say?"
I said, "Doc, you just bought yourself a monkey, where do I sign?" And that's how, three hours later, I happened to be in the mid-day Guadalajara traffic with a stent up my femoral artery, gazing up at the uncompromising ceiling of a Cruz Roja ambulance.
As soon as we got back to the ER at Hospital Civil Nueva (which, by the way, is affiliated with the Guadalajara medical university and is, therefore, a "teaching" hospital) I was taken to an open ward and assigned a bed. On the table beside it was a metal notebook containing my "progress chart?" The notebook was assigned, I noticed, to CAMA #21.
Bed number twenty-one was to be my "home" for the next four days. During that time I was ekg'd and blood pressured and medicated and squinted at and discussed from behind serious expressions by a long line of students, interns, nurses and doctors; and on one occasion, I'm pretty sure the security guard took my temperature. Everybody wanted to have a look at and a word with the old gringo who died and got brought back from the Land of the Gone Away by the Cruz Roja Angels. I was lectured about salubrious diets and efficacious exercises by my hematologist, Dra. Gabi Gonzalez, and told to take my medicine and return in a month. With that I was turned out onto the shimmering streets of Guadalajara to find my own way home. But before I did that, when I walked out of the hospital and down to the street, I turned back for a last look at the main entrance to Hospital Civil Nueva, and I thought, "Everybody in that place, along with the Mexican Red Cross, ought to be knighted or beautified or something. That is how compassion and empathy and social medicine are supposed to work. Whatever is left to me of this life, I owe to them. I'll pay that back if I can, just as often as I can-on that I take my oath." I saluted the edifice.
Back home in Ajijic, I went to find Judy and she and I went to find Polo. Standing in the plaza recounting our renditions of "The Dying," I got an undeniable urge to thank somebody for my life, again, so I picked on Polo. I said, "Thanks for everything, Doc."
Polo snorted and shook his head. "Don't thank me," he instructed me. "But thank God for Mexico."
So I did.
Thank you for taking the time to read this testimony on the Medical Community, including Cruz Roja, in Mexico. I hope this article brings home the immediate need of Cruz Roja in your life here in Mexico. Help keep us funded by giving a little or a lot each month using the Red Cross containers at checkout stands around town, the LCS Red Cross table or on our website, www.cruzrojachapala.com, by Pay Pal.
