Question about Medical Emergency in Boquete

[Time4Us2Retire]

Hi, Everyone!

I was wondering what someone does / who someone calls if there is a medical emergency in Boquete?

Thought it would be a good thing to know --

Thanks --

Linda & T

[David van Harn]

The website was built and tested on a Mac. I just rechecked and I have no problem with Windows 7 using either Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome browsers. 

This is the main page:

And this is the registration page: 

It also renders properly on my Android Smart Phone.

If you are not seeing this, there is a compatibility problem with your device and/or browser. 

Do not post your e-mail here on a public forum, but rather use the contact page to send a message to AaC, and we will help you solve the problem.

[David van Harn]

On the left side of the main page at the www.altoalcrimen.org website, you will find a link named "Register for a Resident ID"  which takes you to the registration page. 

Here is a direct link to the registration page.

There is also a link for contacting AaC via e-mail.  

Once the information and the directions to your casa are verified, you will receive an e-mail with your Resident ID Number. Then you can pick up your plaque at Mail Boxes Etc. in downtown Boquete. (Make sure you know your registration number, because MBE might not have an updated list with your name on it.)

[David van Harn]

If the Panamanian economy holds up, I expect both Polyclinicas will open - mañana - which I translate as "someday."  Like the U.S., treatment won't be free and government funded, but it will be vastly less expensive. 

In 1988, I vacationed in Hawaii with a group that ironically included two Stanford University Hospital plastic surgeons as part of windsurfing instruction group on Maui's north shore.  I fell off my board in the swells, and cut my shin enough to require stitches.  It was a holiday, and it turned out that my medical insurance did not cover emergency care on vacation. Those four stitches - 10 minutes of easy work to close a clean laceration - cost me $600 - 24 years ago in in 1988, or $1,200 in 2014 dollars!

If I needed the same 4 stitches here, it would probably cost less than $100. 

[wryawry]

Health care comments and inquiries seem to automatically devolve into discussions about the merits and/or problematic aspects of the Affordable Care Act here in the good ol' USA.

In my humble opinion: too little, too late.

Things would be so much simpler if all you old people would voluntarily and unselfishly report to your nearest Soylent Green Processing Center. Your heirs and assigns would be ever-so-grateful.

Just imagine how un-cluttered these *ning pages would be!

Ever the pragmatist,

wryawry

[David van Harn]

Are you sure it's not devil-ution, Davitt?  But you are correct, and we've wandered away from the subject or emergency medical services.

"Nearly the entire developed world has universal health care, from Europe to the Asian powerhouses to South America's southern cone to the Anglophone states of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The only developed outliers are a few still-troubled Balkan states, the Soviet-style autocracy of Belarus, and the U.S. of A., the richest nation in the world."

[Bonnie Williams]

A followup question: Does anyone know with a reasonable degree of certainty what kind of emergency medical training the bomberos manning the ambulance have and what kinds of equipment are in the ambulances? I've heard conflicting things.

[Keith Woolford]

Both times I have called for assistance in the last three months Rodny has mustered the Boquete ambulance along with two paramedics and ad driver. The ambulance seemed to be reasonably well equipped but I'm no expert. On the last occasion, I also asked for the bomberos too, as there was fuel on the road and I had been told someone was trapped in a vehicle. Response time to Brisas Boqueteñas has been 15 to 20 minutes max.

[Judy Sacco]

Actually there is a 911 service.  You call 911 and reach the Dolega ambulance.  It is a well equipped ambulance with trained paramedics.  You have to be able to communicate to them in Spanish or get someone who can.  They also have a phone number 206-7400.  This is the one that came to get my husband after the local bomberos refused, because they were instructed to direct all their resources to fighting brush fires and to ignore people who needed help, except road accident victims.  Rodny couldn't even get them to come.  You would probably have better luck with them during the rainy season, as they don't have much fire fighting to do.

[Jim Tosch]

Just because I have a problem with everyone feeling obligated here, I will bet you are still paying taxes in the US, and a big chunk of that supports US military guarantees of maritime trade worldwide.talk about hidden. The world has twenty two aircraft carriers and eleven belong to the US. Have you seen any threat to invade the US lately. All that time you paid taxes in the US you paid for everything that happened in Panama. Enough of that. My issue is the government gives a gift, but surprise, it's on the ledger for the national debt and everyone will pay for it many times over. I'll give you a new car tomorrow as long as it's charged to your bank account. What a gift huh?

[David van Harn]

Nope - don't pay U.S. direct taxes.

With SS under a certain amount, you can't file electronically even if you try - which I did my first year here.  The system simply does not acknowledge the existence of low-income SS recipients. 

This is quite different from the stories I hear from my friends with retirement investments and banking ties to the U.S.