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Phone # Cruz Roja and Best Hospitals in Guad for emergency?


kimanjome

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I've been here 2 years and I still don't know the phone number to Cruz Roja (although I do speak Spanish).  Anybody?

Also, in case there is an emergency and someone needs urgent medical attention--stroke, heart attack, fall with broken hip kind of thing--what are a few of the best hospitals in Guadalajara?

Thanks!

 

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For heart attacks and strokes:  Hospital México Americano Guadalajara. Tel.: (33) 3648-3333. Colomos No. 2110. Colonia Ayuntamiento Guadalajara Jal, México C.P. 44620 .

For any other problems there are several many that are very good.  Among them are:

 Hospital Real San Jose, Calz. Lázaro Cárdenas 4149, Jardín de San Ignacio, 45040 Zapopan, Jal., Phone: 33 1078 8900

Sanatorio San Francisco De Asis.,  Av. de las Américas 1946, Country Club, 44610 Guadalajara, Jal..  Phone: 33 3817 5017

 Hospital Country 2000  Av. Cvln. Jorge Álvarez del Castillo 1542, Chapultepec Country, 44620 Guadalajara, Jal.,  Phone: 33 3854 4500

There are several many others.  Some are more expensive than others and I have not listed the most expensive ones here.  I have only listed the ones with which we have personal experience.

The practice here is, however, that your doctor will tell you which hospital he/she prefers you use and he/she will give you a couple or three choices.  This is based upon his/her experience with the hospital and the supporting staff and equipment for his/her specialty.   Of course, if you don't have a doctor to call in case of an emergency, then I would strongly suggest that you interview several that are available here at Lakeside and when you pick a general practitioner give him/her your complete medical history so if there is an emergency then someone will already know you medically.

It is our experience that your doctor will provide you with his/her cell phone.  You are able to get in touch with them 24/7 in case of an emergency and they will direct you on the next step.  We have had the occasion to call our doctors in the middle of the night and they responded immediately by answering the phone .... once, the heart specialist was in the middle of surgery and had someone in the room take the call and direct us on the course of action to take in our emergency and then met us at the hospital when he finished surgery.  The medical care here is the best we have ever experienced but, of course, we only have the U.S. for comparison.   

It is also a good idea to type up and print your medical history along with all your personal information (name, address, phone number, insurance and insurance agent, RFC#, current medication,  past serious illnesses,  on-going problems, allergies, etc.  This is very helpful when you sit down for your first appointment and also each time you go to the hospital.

If I may suggest you see someone at Quality Care that is located on the Libramiento (there are 2 clinics located near each other but we prefer Quality Care).   This clinic has multiple specialists along with primary care doctors that all work together as a team.  Your primary care doctor would then have a specialist at his/her fingertips to call on for you in any emergency. 

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If you speak Spanish, that is a great asset in a medical emergency. If you speak English only, the "primary responders" here generally speak English, as do most of the specialists.

Do you have insurance? I have experienced private care, a negative one all around. Ajijic Hospital and Mascara clinic are experts at draining your wallet. They will try to get you into a Guadalajara hospital, where the professional drainers begin their time old trade.

Cruz Roja too, the first responders are wise a$$ and know what they are doing, but don't let them take you into the clinic. I have never seen an emergency place as dirty and disorganized as this.

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Seguro Popular as it emerges ever stronger and well equipped. The Community Hospital in Jocotepec is new, and they do have an ambulance. Their first responder speaks English and will even translate for you. They are either going to fix you up (they have a surgery theatre, in house blood testing, etc.) But if not fixing you for the short term, they are stabilizing you for transfer to Guadalajara via ambulance or helicopter. I do not have experience with the big Seguro Popular hospitals in Guadalajara, but rather a General Public Hospital, called Occidente. They are very good, and actually have two emergency rooms now, one of them brand new. This is a major hospital with 770 beds, and 45 specialists. One of their Specialists (Emergency Care and Internal Medicine) works one day a week at Quality Care. Her name is Dra. Ana Gabriel Flores Paytuvi. She is the best doctor I have ever had (mind you I have been very lucky to not need many, but 2018 was a bad year for me medically, but 2019 and beyond looks like clear sailing).

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2 hours ago, CHILLIN said:

If you speak Spanish, that is a great asset in a medical emergency. If you speak English only, the "primary responders" here generally speak English, as do most of the specialists.  

Do you have insurance? I have experienced private care, a negative one all around. Ajijic Hospital and Mascara clinic are experts at draining your wallet. They will try to get you into a Guadalajara hospital, where the professional drainers begin their time old trade.

Cruz Roja too, the first responders are wise a$$ and know what they are doing, but don't let them take you into the clinic. I have never seen an emergency place as dirty and disorganized as this.

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Seguro Popular as it emerges ever stronger and well equipped. The Community Hospital in Jocotepec is new, and they do have an ambulance. Their first responder speaks English and will even translate for you. They are either going to fix you up (they have a surgery theatre, in house blood testing, etc.) But if not fixing you for the short term, they are stabilizing you for transfer to Guadalajara via ambulance or helicopter. I do not have experience with the big Seguro Popular hospitals in Guadalajara, but rather a General Public Hospital, called Occidente. They are very good, and actually have two emergency rooms now, one of them brand new. This is a major hospital with 770 beds, and 45 specialists. One of their Specialists (Emergency Care and Internal Medicine) works one day a week at Quality Care. Her name is Dra. Ana Gabriel Flores Paytuvi. She is the best doctor I have ever had (mind you I have been very lucky to not need many, but 2018 was a bad year for me medically, but 2019 and beyond looks like clear sailing).

It has been my understanding over many years that the Cruz Roja will only take you to their clinic until your own physician demands they transport you to some hospital. They say they take you to clinic to stabilize you but if you have a heart attack you need to get to the hospital and a cardiac team quickly.

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2 hours ago, geeser said:

Do you have insurance? I have experienced private care, a negative one all around. Ajijic Hospital and Mascara clinic are experts at draining your wallet. They will try to get you into a Guadalajara hospital, where the professional drainers begin their time old trade.

Cruz Roja too, the first responders are wise a$$ and know what they are doing, but don't let them take you into the clinic. I have never seen an emergency place as dirty and disorganized as this.

Sorry you have had bad experiences with Ajijic Hospital and Mascaras. We have a friend who has personal experience with several weeks of daily outpatient treatment at Ajijic Hospital with no suggestion that he go to a hospital in Guadalajara. Very affordable and complete recovery. He is very happy.

My own experiences with Mascaras have also been extremely positive. I was recovering from cancer surgery followed by chemo & radiation. I developed a severe internal infection and was "hospitalized" in Mascaras for two night. IV's, great care, fed soup once I could keep it down. No mention of going to a hospital in Guadalajara.

Just I was finally recovering from a couple of years battling cancer I fainted at breakfast on Easter Sunday. Went to Mascaras where they determined that my blood pressure was 60/40. They called my cardiologist who has a has here and came by the clinic. In this case I did go into the city where I had triple bypass and a pacemaker two days later.

Over the previous 4-5 years I have had around $2MM in medical care at hospitals in Guadalajara and at Mascaras. Almost all of it has been covered by my private insurance except of course my deductibles. Most of my experiences in Guadalajara have been in San Javier or Angeles del Carmen. World class care with exceptional service and compassion.

Again, I am sorry you have had such negative experiences. Fortunately my experiences have been quite different.

The doctors at Mascaras along with several specialist have a "real hospital" under construction just past Panino restaurant. They "expect" it to be open in February but that could slide a little. It should be a great addition to our community.

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3 minutes ago, REC said:

Sorry you have had bad experiences with Ajijic Hospital and Mascaras. We have a friend who has personal experience with several weeks of daily outpatient treatment at Ajijic Hospital with no suggestion that he go to a hospital in Guadalajara. Very affordable and complete recovery. He is very happy.

My own experiences with Mascaras have also been extremely positive. I was recovering from cancer surgery followed by chemo & radiation. I developed a severe internal infection and was "hospitalized" in Mascaras for two night. IV's, great care, fed soup once I could keep it down. No mention of going to a hospital in Guadalajara.

Just I was finally recovering from a couple of years battling cancer I fainted at breakfast on Easter Sunday. Went to Mascaras where they determined that my blood pressure was 60/40. They called my cardiologist who has a has here and came by the clinic. In this case I did go into the city where I had triple bypass and a pacemaker two days later.

Over the previous 4-5 years I have had around $2MM in medical care at hospitals in Guadalajara and at Mascaras. Almost all of it has been covered by my private insurance except of course my deductibles. Most of my experiences in Guadalajara have been in San Javier or Angeles del Carmen. World class care with exceptional service and compassion.

Again, I am sorry you have had such negative experiences. Fortunately my experiences have been quite different.

The doctors at Mascaras along with several specialist have a "real hospital" under construction just past Panino restaurant. They "expect" it to be open in February but that could slide a little. It should be a great addition to our community.

What I said was: It has been my understanding over many years that the Cruz Roja will only take you to their clinic until your own physician demands they transport you to some hospital. They say they take you to clinic to stabilize you but if you have a heart attack you need to get to the hospital and a cardiac team quickly.

What you quoted was said by Chillin

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3 hours ago, geeser said:

It has been my understanding over many years that the Cruz Roja will only take you to their clinic until your own physician demands they transport you to some hospital. They say they take you to clinic to stabilize you but if you have a heart attack you need to get to the hospital and a cardiac team quickly.

On this point it my understanding that Cruz Roja will probably not take you into Guadalajara. Having their ambulance out of service for several hours to transport someone into the city would make it dangerous for those of us that live here. A friend was involved in an accident and the injured party was taken from Cruz Roja to a hospital in Guadalajara in a private ambulance. The Cruz Roja clinic did not seem unorganized or dirty. I must have been there on a good day.

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Our preference here Lakeside is Ajijic Hospital where we have also been very well served and not price gouged.  When my husband had his first heart problems we went immediately to Ajijic Hospital where Dr. Rodriguez did an EKG and advised that we needed to call our Cardiologist.  We did and Dr. Rodriguez talked to him and it was decided we would be able to drive ourselves into Guadalajara to the hospital.  I also had treatment for a very bad infection at Ajijic Hospital at the direction of our infectious disease specialist to Dr. Rodriguez.  This was much easier and much less expensive than staying in a hospital in Guadalajara for IV treatment.  We were treated very well and everything was clean.  This has been several years ago at this point but even though we use Quality Care specialists now we would not hesitate to go to Ajijic Clinic for these types of purposes.

We have had occasion to use Cruz Rojo twice.  In fact, the first time was when my husband had that first problem with his heart and fell to the floor.  Cruz Rojo arrived in minutes and did not take us to their clinic but to Dr. Rodriguez as we requested.  I don't know why this happened if this is not their policy but that was what they did that time.  They would not take any money from us so we went later and made a donation.   The only other time we used them was for a scorpion sting and we were charged a nominal fee.  As I said, this was several many years ago.

San Javier and  Angeles del Carmen are excellent hospitals but they are also more expensive than the ones we have chosen to use.  We have also been told by several doctors that the care and equipment (at least for the problems that we have had) is not any better than the hospitals I mentioned before.

As to Mascaras.  I totally agree that the primary care doctor there will keep you coming back whether he knows what is wrong with you are not.  That was our experience when we first arrived here 13 years ago and I have seen that practice continue with friends.  We have used 2 specialists there that were very good and did not over charge or keep us on the hook, however.  

I watched a very good friend die a painful and horrible death at the hands of doctors at the Hospital Civil in Guadalajara.  Two of their doctors just could not decide whether or not she needed gallbladder surgery right now or give medication and wait.  They gave medication twice and waited until it was too late.  We visited when she was in a coma, yellow and dying.  The place was filthy, people sitting and laying and eating in the halls, kids crying.  She was in a ward with 4 other people, the one next to her was coughing his guts out.  Of course, the germs didn't matter at that point.  I would never, ever recommend a public hospital due to this experience that will stay with me forever.  This is my only personal and up close experience with IMSS but I have heard others that had apparently a great experience.  Personally, I would not take the chance with IMSS or Seguro Popular.

 

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