On Wednesday, one of the doctors took me and a fourth year Georgetown student who's down here as well (Navy HPSP) to Hospital Dos de Mayo (second of May; one of the major battles against the Spanish back in the day), which is one of the public hospitals in Lima and a major teaching hospital for medical students and residents.
The main thing we did there was listen to morning report (well, listen to that doctor translating morning report for us), which was about a few cases of HIV patients. They have a lot of the same problems with HIV patients that we have in the States--mostly, people not being compliant with their medications, and thus getting complications--but they don't quite have the same lab capabilities or treatment modalities that most hospitals in the States have. It was interesting to hear about how some of their treatment guidelines differ because of this.
One interesting thing about the hospital and associated clinics is that they pay for lab tests at a window (as opposed to getting a bill in the mail later). So they have this large sign that has all the prices listed for various labs and tests. I know you can't see it well here, but all the prices are fairly nominal, at least compared to our prices. For example, an EKG costs S/15, which is about five dollars; an echocardiogram is S/60, which is about $20. There's no way you could get an echo for $20 back home. I don't think the few minutes it takes the cardiologist to watch it and declare it normal would even be that little, not to mention the technician's time or the actual procedure costs.
On the grounds is also the crypt of Daniel Carrion, a national hero in Peru, especially in medical circles. When he was a medical student, he proved that systemic (throughout the body) and cutaneous (on the skin) Brucellosis were caused by the same bacteria, by injecting himself with pus from a patient's cutaneous Brucellosis sore. Unfortunately, he died of his little experiment, which just proves one of my points--if you suspect something is going to kill you, don't do it.
So that was my morning on Wednesday. Then I spent the afternoon hearing about research in parasitology (mostly malaria) and virology (mostly dengue) going on in Peru, and yesterday spent the day in the virology lab, learning the various techniques and tests that they do.
3 comments:
Yeah... Unfortunately, medical history is filled with idiots who decided to infect themselves with something. And some of them died. And some Latin American countries made them heroes.
Those lab test fees are the complete cost of the tests? or just what the patient is expected to pay?
What sort of "medical insurance" or government payments/taxes pay for medical care in Peru, if any?
It's probably the complete cost of the test; our costs are completely jacked-up for a multitude of reasons. And some people have insurance, but everyone can be seen at the public hospitals (I didn't take any pictures of the wards, but we're talking 40+ pts to one large ward room) and be seen in the government-run clinics, if they have access to one (obviously not an issue in Lima, but definitely one in the more remote parts of the country).
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