Cebu For Medical Tourism

[Mr Lee]

Is Cebu's medical care top notch? I know that dental care at Ramon's Dental Office is very reasonable and IMO top notch, but what does everyone else think about the rest of Cebu's medical care? Luckily, so far I have not had to use any of it and that is why I am asking those of you who have. Balikbayans eyed to be Cebu's envoys for health and wellnessCEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Health and Wellness Council (CHWC) is initiating an aggressive move to tap the balikbayan community from the different continents around the world to be the

[Old55]

It

[Search]

I think that the way the medical profession is organized in Thailand and Singapore give them an advantage. In Thailand and to some extent in Singapore, you first choose a hospital and then pick doctors within that hospital. It is the reputation of the hospital not the individual doctors that you choose. You rely to a great extent on the hospital to select good doctors. Essentially you hire the hospital and they hire individual doctors. In the USA, you attempt to find a good a doctor and then go to whichever hospital the doctors. I get the impression that this is also true in the Philippines. Finding a good physician where you live is hard enough, finding one on the other side of the world is daunting. It is a lot easier to choose a quality hospital. The hospital as a health provider has a number of advantages.

• Marketing - a hospital can promote itself internationally.

• Package Pricing- If the doctors are employees of the hospital as in Thailand and Singapore, it is easier to establish package pricing for a procedure. In other words, a single total price that includes everything.
• Equipment - The high tech machines are owned by the hospitals in Thailand and Singapore. The hospitals can schedule tests around the clock. This makes buying the newest expensive high tech gizmos affordable and a good investment. In the Philippines and the USA, the high tech machines are spread out between doctors offices, clinics, hospitals and testing facilities.

It seems to me, that medical tourism in the Philippines is at a structural disadvantage compared with Thailand and Singapore. On the other hand, the Philippines does have the high international reputation of Philippine doctors and nurses.Search

[TheMason]

If you Google "Cebu doctors" the first 10 hits or so are for the hospital followed by a news article about the doctor's possibly losing their license. The story talks about the YouTube clip of doctors removing the foreign object from the patient's rectum. I think any foreigner reading that story will steer clear of the Philippines when considering a medical tourism site. Also, as was previously mentioned, its difficult to attract medical tourists when your own citizens avail of overseas medical care whenever possible. The only Filipinos choosing a Filipino hospital are those with no financial alternatives. Finally, someone else mentioned the good reputation Filipino nurses and doctors have overseas. That is true to an extent, but I think Filipino doctors are best known as nurses overseas. One of the reasons that health care in the Philippines is in such bad shape is because many doctors would rather go overseas as a nurse than work as a doctor in the Philippines.I just saw this article and wanted to add it to the discussion about Filipino medical care. http://www.inquirer.net/mindandbody/eatright/view.php?db=1&article=20091109-235132The story essentially says the hospital refused to discharge a baby until the Mother paid her bill or put up property as collateral. The medical field is branching out into kidnapping. I wonder if they'll get BI involved to put hold orders on foreign patients before treating them. I'm sure the tourists will simply flock here with practices like this.

Edited November 14, 2009 by TheMason

[Mr Lee]

If you Google "Cebu doctors" the first 10 hits or so are for the hospital followed by a news article about the doctor's possibly losing their license. The story talks about the YouTube clip of doctors removing the foreign object from the patient's rectum. I think any foreigner reading that story will steer clear of the Philippines when considering a medical tourism site. Also, as was previously mentioned, its difficult to attract medical tourists when your own citizens avail of overseas medical care whenever possible. The only Filipinos choosing a Filipino hospital are those with no financial alternatives. Finally, someone else mentioned the good reputation Filipino nurses and doctors have overseas. That is true to an extent, but I think Filipino doctors are best known as nurses overseas. One of the reasons that health care in the Philippines is in such bad shape is because many doctors would rather go overseas as a nurse than work as a doctor in the Philippines.I just saw this article and wanted to add it to the discussion about Filipino medical care. http://www.inquirer.net/mindandbody/eatright/view.php?db=1&article=20091109-235132The story essentially says the hospital refused to discharge a baby until the Mother paid her bill or put up property as collateral. The medical field is branching out into kidnapping. I wonder if they'll get BI involved to put hold orders on foreign patients before treating them. I'm sure the tourists will simply flock here with practices like this.

This is a major problem in the Philippines. I remember a number of years back, one of our nephews baby died in the hospital and they would not release the babies body unless the p25,000 was paid. We eventually came to their rescue but had it been me and had I been in the Philippines at the time, I would have made them an offer they should not refuse and if that did not work then I would have told them to keep the body, because my feelings are, once the soul is gone then the body really means nothing, but that is just me and I know it is very different in the Philippines and I may have a screw lose in my head from being hit in the head so much when I was younger. :thumbsup: :yes: Edited November 14, 2009 by Mr. Lee

[twostrokes]

Well my experience in the hospitals I have been in or at least treated at, in the Philippines was not favorable. The problems deal with everything from doctor's additudes, nurses haphazard way of doing things and hospital administration. examples: I had severe pancreatitis, well documented... for those that don't know an attack of pancreatitis is considered one of the most painful medical conditions known to man as documented by medical folks. I ended up having to buy my meperdine from a Nurse, as they were giving me injections of saline until I started paying. Like I didn't know when I wasn't getting any pain killer in me...sheesh how stupid can someone be. Or, how smart can they be, they ended up with quite a bit of money.example: I had a nurse change out an IV. she did not clamp off the line, so the existing fluid in the line drained out on to the floor. When she hooked up the new IV bag of meds, she did not bleed the air out of the line. She was perfectly happy in just hooking it up. I had it clamped off by hand and ask her to please bleed out the air before she killed me. With a very sour face, she did so as if I was asking for just tooo much..Upon discharge I talked the doctor into giving me a script for meperdine in injection form so I could give myself injections during the 26-30 hour flight back to the states. The doctor agreed, but the hospital had a policy as to not fill scripts for narcotics. They also would not give me the necessary paperwork to travel with it. Thank god I had friends in high places at the Embassy during that time. I was able to obtain sufficient paperwork from the Embassy to allow me to carry the narcotics on board.As with everything else in the Philippines, until such time that people in power (regardless of where that is in the systems), stop looking at every transaction with foreigners as a way to make some quick cash, they will never be anything but a 3rd world country that half the people on the planet don't even knows exists and/or doesn't care. The half that does know they exist, only knows from their world begging, and or their world class corruption. Anyone looking at getting medical done there by choice would only consider it due to such a financial hardship and an illness that will kill them as their motivator.I know that there are many Filipino Doctors who practice outside the Philippines. And, of course Filipina Nurses are all over the world. But there has to be something about being in their own country that destroys them and their work ethic. As a Nurse myself, I have worked with many, and had not too many complaints as to their attitudes and/or abilities. But I think it is because they are removed from their country and have to live/work up to new standards because their Filipino ways won't work overseas. They would be gone in a minute.

Edited November 14, 2009 by twostrokes

[Mr Lee]

For those of us who feel the US has better health care than the Philippines, maybe we need to read this article and realize that there seems to be a lot we do not know about what is going on there. The article quotes figures from 2006 and states things have been continually getting worse, so who knows what today's figures might be. I also have to guess that it would probably be the same or even worse in many of the other first world countries. Read it and then feel free to comment on it. Hospital infections killed 48,000 in 2006 alone Pneumonia, blood-borne diseases cost $8.1 billion in 2006

[TheMason]

I think the key paragraph in the article is this one.....

"In many cases, these conditions could have been avoided with better infection control in hospitals," said Ramanan Laxminarayan of Resources for the Future, a think tank that sponsored the study.

I have 2 questions. What % of the total hospital patient's died of infection and how has that number changed over time? How does the US rate compare to other nations? Also, how many of the 48,000 deaths could have been prevented with reasonable infection control protocols? You could eliminate virtually all of these infections if you put each patient in an isolated room with airlock access and stringent decontamination procedures, but that would cost a whole lot more than $8.1 billion. The article cites some simple infection protocols such as handwashing to prevent these illnesses, but doesn't really go into detail about what infection control lapses, if any, led to the deaths.This article could have had useful info in it, but sadly it does not. Throwing a number out like that without any context is virtually useless.Despite this article, I still think you will find much better health care in the US than in the Philippines. The number of wealthy Filipinos going to the US for their personal health care tells me I'm not the only one that thinks so. When the Mayor of Cebu goes to a local hospital for his personal care, maybe I'll consider doing the same. But if he goes to the US for his treatment, that doesn't instill confidence in the system here.Other problems with the Philippines system is the 'brain-drain' of the OFW system. It is not uncommon for Filipino doctors to go overseas as nurses in order to earn more money. As for nurses, the Filipino nursing schools have really degraded in quality and most are no more than diploma mills. I don't recall the exact figures, but the % of nursing school graduates that can pass the certification exam is going down rapidly. Of the ones that do manage to pass, the OFW brain drain takes its toll here as well. Why work in the RP for peanuts when you can earn big money working as a nurse overseas? The fact is, the people staffing the hospitals and clinics of the Philippines are not the best medical talent the country produces. The times I've needed to use health care here in the Philippines has not been a positive experience. For example, my wife is currently undergoing treatment at St. Lukes for TB. When she started her treatment, we told them my wife was using a birth control shot and we asked if the TB drugs would interfere with her contraception. We told them the name of the shot and they came back the next day and told us there was no problem, that the TB drugs would not impact the contraceptive shot we were using. While doing my own research on her TB drugs, one of the most prominent drug interaction warnings has to do with TB drugs decreasing the efficacy of hormone-based contraception, including the shot my wife was using. It was specifically named in the drugmakers literature for the TB drugs my wife was given. So, the staff at a clinic who provides TB treatment as one of its primary functions was not aware of the drug interaction warnings for the medicines they are dispensing. I do not think that level of ignorance and lack of knowledge is unique to this clinic or TB treatment. I think it is pervasive throughout the Filipino health care system. So, if given a choice of possibly contracting an infection at a US hospital or dealing with general low-quality of care in the Philippines, I'll use US medical care whenever possible.Its also important to note that sepsis and other infections are not unique to US hospitals. They happen everywhere, and I think they are more frequent, not less frequent, in the Philippines. Remember this story?http://www.gmanews.tv/story/100062/Another-baby-dies-of-sepsis-at-Ospital-ng-Makati

[UZI]

If you Google "Cebu doctors" the first 10 hits or so are for the hospital followed by a news article about the doctor's possibly losing their license. The story talks about the YouTube clip of doctors removing the foreign object from the patient's rectum. I think any foreigner reading that story will steer clear of the Philippines when considering a medical tourism site. Also, as was previously mentioned, its difficult to attract medical tourists when your own citizens avail of overseas medical care whenever possible. The only Filipinos choosing a Filipino hospital are those with no financial alternatives. Finally, someone else mentioned the good reputation Filipino nurses and doctors have overseas. That is true to an extent, but I think Filipino doctors are best known as nurses overseas. One of the reasons that health care in the Philippines is in such bad shape is because many doctors would rather go overseas as a nurse than work as a doctor in the Philippines.I just saw this article and wanted to add it to the discussion about Filipino medical care. http://www.inquirer....20091109-235132The story essentially says the hospital refused to discharge a baby until the Mother paid her bill or put up property as collateral. The medical field is branching out into kidnapping. I wonder if they'll get BI involved to put hold orders on foreign patients before treating them. I'm sure the tourists will simply flock here with practices like this.

This is a major problem in the Philippines. I remember a number of years back, one of our nephews baby died in the hospital and they would not release the babies body unless the p25,000 was paid. We eventually came to their rescue but had it been me and had I been in the Philippines at the time, I would have made them an offer they should not refuse and if that did not work then I would have told them to keep the body, because my feelings are, once the soul is gone then the body really means nothing, but that is just me and I know it is very different in the Philippines and I may have a screw lose in my head from being hit in the head so much when I was younger. :36_6_3[1]: :bonk:

Guys,1st of all Lee, as you said this was a number of YEARS ago, this should not happen today & TheMason, your story is typical of reporting here. The girl had run up a bill of P503,000 with clearly, no means to pay for it plus the Hospitals lawyer said "Cebu Doctors' officials will appear in court to clarify that the baby has not been detained. " so not necessarily 'kidnapping' as you put it but seems more as a means to get the girl to go to the hospital & come up with a plan to pay the bill. Again quote " You left your child under the administration of the hospital and you refused to talk with them."To clarify here THE LAW states:

SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful for any hospital or medical Clinic in the country to detain or to otherwise cause, directly or indirectly, the detention of patients who have fully or partially recovered or have been adequately attended to or who may have died, for reasons of nonpayment in part or in full of hospital bills or medical expenses. SEC. 2. Patients who have fully or partially recovered and who already wish to leave the hospital or medical clinic but are financially incapable to settle, in part or in full, their hospitalization expenses, including professional fees and medicines, shall be allowed to leave the hospital or medical clinic, with a right to demand the issuance of the corresponding medical certificate and other pertinent papers required for the release of the patient from the hospital or medical clinic upon the execution of a promissory note covering the unpaid obligation. The promissory note shall be secured by either a mortgage or by a guarantee of a co-maker, who will be jointly and severally liable with the patient for the unpaid obligation. In the case of a deceased patient, the corresponding death certificate and other documents required for interment and other purposes shall be released to any of his surviving relatives requesting for the same: Provided, however, That patients who stayed in private rooms shall not be covered by this Act. SEC. 3. Any officer or employee of the hospital or medical clinic responsible for releasing patients, who violates the provisions of this Act shall be punished by a fine of not less than Twenty thousand pesos (P20,000.00), but not more than Fifty thousand pesos (P50,000.00), or imprisonment of not less than one month, but not more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the proper court.

So note that the girl had no property but could have got someone (family?) to stand as guarantor. I would also like to know in what circumstances, she ran up this amount without some sort of stage payments. Even a hotel wants your Credit card up front. Also note guys, this isn't applicable if you go for a private room so be sure YOU can pay.The point here though is to show that following the above 2007 act, it is not legal to hold a patient or body until the bill is paid BUT you also cannot just run up a half million Piso bill & expect to just walk away without some solid agreement to pay either.So, as a Brit, let me ask this, in America, if someone was admitted (if indeed they would be without insurance cover - I too have heard stories of patients being turned away from the hospital there), how would this have been resolved? Would the hospital release the patient without bills being paid, no insurance & no security offered against a Promissory Note?The thread points out, treatment in Thailand & Singapore. I had my bypass op done in Malaysia & even with BUPA International insurance cover, there was a point where I was pestered about covering bills as some paperwork had not been received from BUPA. It was resolved quickly but it showed me that outside of the UK, hospitals are BUSINESSES 1st & foremost.The story above BTW ended like this:

THE mother who had gone to court to compel Cebu Doctors' University Hospital (CDUH) to discharge her baby promised to pay about P5,000 every month until she settles the entire P514,866 in hospital bills. CDUH Billing Supervisor Margie Abellanosa said that Maria Lourdes Farro executed a promissory note late Tuesday afternoon, indicating her willingness to pay starting Nov. 15. SunStar

Also worth noting is this statement from the hospital lawyer "Mercado told that clients who can't pay their bills on time are encouraged to gather people willing to donate blood to the hospital to offset the bill. Each donor's contribution is equivalent to P2,950."If a patron can't pay his bill he or she can bring many donors and his hospital bills would be settled once the amount has been fully paid,"UZI

[TheMason]

Guys,1st of all Lee, as you said this was a number of YEARS ago, this should not happen today & TheMason, your story is typical of reporting here. The girl had run up a bill of P503,000 with clearly, no means to pay for it plus the Hospitals lawyer said "Cebu Doctors' officials will appear in court to clarify that the baby has not been detained. " so not necessarily 'kidnapping' as you put it but seems more as a means to get the girl to go to the hospital & come up with a plan to pay the bill. Again quote " You left your child under the administration of the hospital and you refused to talk with them."To clarify here THE LAW states:

SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful for any hospital or medical Clinic in the country to detain or to otherwise cause, directly or indirectly, the detention of patients who have fully or partially recovered or have been adequately attended to or who may have died, for reasons of nonpayment in part or in full of hospital bills or medical expenses. SEC. 2. Patients who have fully or partially recovered and who already wish to leave the hospital or medical clinic but are financially incapable to settle, in part or in full, their hospitalization expenses, including professional fees and medicines, shall be allowed to leave the hospital or medical clinic, with a right to demand the issuance of the corresponding medical certificate and other pertinent papers required for the release of the patient from the hospital or medical clinic upon the execution of a promissory note covering the unpaid obligation. The promissory note shall be secured by either a mortgage or by a guarantee of a co-maker, who will be jointly and severally liable with the patient for the unpaid obligation. In the case of a deceased patient, the corresponding death certificate and other documents required for interment and other purposes shall be released to any of his surviving relatives requesting for the same: Provided, however, That patients who stayed in private rooms shall not be covered by this Act. SEC. 3. Any officer or employee of the hospital or medical clinic responsible for releasing patients, who violates the provisions of this Act shall be punished by a fine of not less than Twenty thousand pesos (P20,000.00), but not more than Fifty thousand pesos (P50,000.00), or imprisonment of not less than one month, but not more than six months, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the proper court.

The law prohibiting refusing to release a patient for nonpayment doesn't apply to people that stay in a private room. As expats that would likely utilize private rooms, we should all keep enough cash on hand to pay for a medical emergency. Keeping 500,000 p in the bank is a good idea for anyone living here.For a variety of reasons, the most prominent being overall quality of care, I just don't see the Philippines becoming a medical tourism destination. There are far better countries to go to for that sort of thing.