LIVE – Page 2 – Dive To Escape

We were seven months pregnant and itching to go on a relaxing vacation. We spoke to our family doctor in Ontario, Canada. Mentions we would like to go on vacation to Mexico for a week. Is that a good idea? Doctor, absolutely, you guys enjoy yourselves because once your baby arrives, things will change. With the doctor's endorsement, off we went to Mexico, staying at the Bahia Principe Akumal Luxury Resort. If you want to know what our stay was like and to read a full review, click here. We arrived in Mexico. The sun was shining, and my wife was having no drinks. We were finally winding down from the hustle and bustle of city life when, on the second day of our vacation, when we went to breakfast, I noticed she had a blood blister in her eye. She was feeling fine otherwise, but it was pretty hard to miss. I made sure she was drinking enough water in the sun. There were no signs of a headache, and it definitely didn’t hurt her eye the day before. We didn’t have any reason to explain why a blood vessel would have broken in her eye. Not actually my wife's eye just an example of what it looked like. Being pregnant, we know that blood pressure can be slightly different and that mothers also can pass small clots while pregnant. Both things could hurt our baby ( yes, the fetus). Being concerned and not wanting to take any chances, I went to the front desk of the resort lobby and explained to them that we may have a situation and wanted to see a doctor. The staff of the front desk explained that they had a doctor on-site at the hacienda located at the entrance to the resort she immediately called a trolly to take us there personally. Upon arriving at the Doctor's office, it was clean and quiet we waited in a waiting room for a few minutes, and we could hear someone on the phone in the next room. When the phone call ended, the person entered the waiting room and introduced herself as the doctor. She spoke English well and was very easy to understand. She explained how much the initial visit was and that if we had travel insurance, they would normally cover it, but if they didn’t, we would have to pay out of pocket. This is very different from back home, as almost no medical treatment is paid out of pocket at all. I knew we weren’t in Canada anymore, and we were also on vacation. I wasn’t sure what to expect or how much any of these consults may cost. Visiting Bahia Principe Resort Doctore Once we paid the initial consult, the doctor got to work with her physical. She was very gentle and patient with my 7-month-pregnant wife. She was very thorough. She even did an ocular exam with fluorescein stains and ocular pressure. ( the eye exam back home likely would have been done. by a specialist) so far, I was impressed with how thorough the exam was and how comfortable the doctor was doing an eye exam, which isn’t something they do every day. All vital signs were typical, and the baby's HR was normal. So the doctor prescribed an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory for the eye and asked us to return in two days if it was not better. Keep in mind we are only at the resort for seven days. That would be our 5th day to come back for a recheck. We came back for the recheck appointment, where there was no charge, the doctor just really seemed like she was concerned and wanted to be through. On the second day, the eye actually looked worse. There was more bleeding in the eye, even with the medication. At that point, the doctor wasn’t comfortable with the situation. My wife felt completely fine, and all vital were normal the baby's heart rate was normal, but there wasn’t any other way to examine the baby at the resort clinic, so the doctor asked us to go to the hospital emergency room for further workup because she was afraid of missing something given that we were pregnant. At this point, even though we felt fine, we were pretty concerned and felt terrible. Here we go on vacation and take a chance, and now we could have possibly compromised our baby in some way, and my wife is having a bleed in her eye with no explanations. We thought, let's go to the hospital to be thorough and see if we can find out what is happening. Off to the Mexican private hospital Transfer to the private hospital in Cancun, Mexico. We took a taxi with a reasonable flat rate of $150 Pasos ($8.50 USD). Upon arriving at a brand new building, we entered the emergency room waiting area, which was clean and quiet when we arrived. Most emergency rooms in Ontario, Canada, will be very busy, definitely not quite. The receptionist explained that to be seen, we need to leave a $1000 USD deposit and that the hospital doesn’t deal with insurance, so you must submit your paperwork to them after the treatments. At this point, we wanted to know what was going on, so we left the deposit. We proceeded to wait over an hour, and at this time, yes, the emergency room came alive. There was a steady flow of taxis dropping sick people off, and some really sick patients came via ambulance with paramedics. There were Spanish-speaking people, several Americans, some French. It seemed like a real mixed bag of everyone coming to this hospital. Maya Riviera Private Hospital The hospital we were sent to was Hospiten Riviera Maya C. Balamcanché Lote 1, MZA.30, Carr. Federal 77710 Quintana Roo Mexico I asked the receptionist whether local Mexicans could use this hospital or if it is just private, it was explained to me that there are public hospitals for Mexican citizens and that they are decent, but if locals have insurance from work, they will use the private hospital to free the public hospital as much as possible but that all non-citizen have to use the private hospital and pay out of pocket. It sounded something like it was at home, but we don’t have people with insurance using private hospitals. After about an hour's wait, we were taken to an emergency room bed, where we proceeded. We waited 25 minutes when the emergency doctor started his consult. The doctor was very thorough and asked about my wife's medical history, then went through our whole pregnancy medical history. I was impressed with how much time and how thorough the doctor was trying to be. He did mention several times that he wanted to be extra thorough because of the baby. After a thorough history, he did a full physical where everything was normal with no significant findings. The doctor at that point said because everything was normal on the physical, it still didn’t explain why my wife's eye was getting worse, and that he would like to have a Gynecological/Obstatric exam (OBGYN) for a fetal ultrasound to make sure everything is normal with the baby, but if we did want to do that it was up to us. We were left to decide what to do next, we were concerned about the baby but also relieved that there were no findings on the physical exam. We opted to get the ultrasound exam so that we could rest assured that we did check everything. We waited about 20 minutes and then walked across the hospital to an exam room with about 6 large, brand-new ultrasound machines. We were the only people in the room; the doctor introduced herself and proceeded to go over our whole medical history, taking her time and being thorough. She explained that she didn’t expect to find anything on our exam, but it was good to go ahead with the exam. Luckily, the exam also found nothing other than a healthy, happy baby. After all this, my wife concluded that she did vomit while brushing her teeth the morning I saw that her eye had burst a blood vessel, and given that she was pregnant, it was possible that the heaving from the vomiting caused the blood pressure to spike, bursting the vessels in her eye. Conclusion Our experience was positive because everything was okay with our baby, and other than the ugly-looking eyes, my wife was safe and healthy also. All the doctors we encountered took their time to be as thorough as possible. Still, it was strange that at every step, even when everything was okay, or there were no significant findings, they were always reluctant to tell you they were comfortable discharging us. There was always the stipulation that everything was up to us, whatever we decided. All the doctors seemed uncomfortable, saying everything was fine to discharge you. We got, “Well, I am an ER doctor, so I think your eye is okay, but I can’t speak to your baby.” Or” Your baby is fine, but I can’t speak to your eye or blood pressure.” The initial cost of the visit to the resort doctor was $100, which our travel insurance covered; we travelled with Allianz Global Travel Insurance. The hospital emergency room cost $182.26, and the ultrasound and exam by the OBGYN were 417.18 USD, neither of which were covered by the insurance as they found them unnecessary. Hopefully, our experience will shed some light on what one might expect if using private hospital services in Cancun, Mexico.