Ecuador's top-notch medical and dental care

By Gary Scott

On the most recent International Living Discovery Tour to Ecuador we were joined by a 93-year-old reader. The guy was unstoppable, para-sailing, mountain climbing... seemingly indestructible... until he simply stepped off the bus and banged his head on the door.

The reason I'm telling you all this? Believe it or not, in all the years that I've been involved in Discovery Tours to Ecuador, we've never really had a medical emergency. So in the way that sometimes mishaps can be fortuitous, this minor accident allowed me a birds eye view of Ecuadorian medical care... and I liked what I found.

We rushed Paul to the emergency room where we happily discovered the cut was far less severe than it looked. Quite a few stitches later and with some medicine, our near centenarian was comfortably back in his hotel room.

Then I looked at the bill. $15 for the visit and the stitches, and another five bucks for the medication. "That's all?," I questioned? In the U.S. we aren't even allowed to think the word hospital for 20 bucks! Just how good is the medical care? The whole experience prompted me to explore just how good and inexpensive are medical services in Ecuador?

I had spotted a new hospital near the U.S. military base in Manta. One of the other IL readers on the tour is an old-timer M.D. with 40 years of general surgery under his belt so I decided to take him along for his professional opinion.

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