Healthy Living in Ecuador

Healthy Living 3
Ecuadorian
food is fabulous and
fresh. The markets are overloaded with fresh produce which are picked
the day
you buy. For example, we could buy Avocadoes at $1.00 per kilo. We
could have a
whole table of fresh produce for around $10 - enough meat, vegetables
and other
supplies for three meals per day for the both of us.
There
are also vendors who can
provide you with fresh organic produce if you want to pay a little more. Here
in Cuenca just across the Tomebamba
River where we live is a new organic market.
The prices are great and have
a look at the choice of Potatoes. I
was once told that Ecuador has about 300
different types of potatoes.


Healthy Living 3
We
all know how expensive medical
and dental care is. Well in Ecuador you will find that many people from
the US
and Canada actually have medical and dental treatment whilst on
vacation as it
is so much cheaper than from their own country. For instance you can
have a
root canal done for about $400 and a tooth extraction will cost you
around $45.
Dentists
are mostly trained overseas and
use state of the art equipment here in Ecuador.
August
2009: John
had a very bad fall down some stairs and
basically cracked his head open and suffered bad concussion. We
were on the coast at the time and just
about to drive back to Guayaquil to catch a flight to Cuenca. When
we are on the coast we live in quite a remote
village.
We did return to Cuenca the
next day and the following day……….a
few days after the
event………………our
friend
whose father is a Doctor here in Cuenca, made an appointment for John
to see a
Neurosurgeon.
The service was
fantastic.
The Doctor then organized for
John to have a head scan within half an hour of the appointment.
The
clinic and hospital were very
modern and clean.
Once the head scan had
been done (which by the way was all positive) the Doctor came over to
check out
the X-ray and explain to John that he should lay low for a couple of
days as he
had quite a severe blow to the head.
Anyway
after all was said and done
the total bill, Doctor $30, Head scan $85 and prescription for some
tablets etc
$90 = Total $205.00.
We were also given
the Doctors cell number in case John required his services urgently. We
were very impressed.
Buying
natural health food
supplements here is also very cheap. All
your vitamins and much more are mainly available in the health food
stores in
the cities.
Even on the coast in Puerto
Lopez is a small vendor who sells natural remedies. I
recently bought some teas from him which
come from Peru but were so inexpensive and certainly did the job for
the
digestive system.
Ecuador
also have state of the art
hospitals and health insurance is very reasonable. It was interesting
to hear
from our local friend that many people from the US come over and have
surgery
in Ecuador as it is much cheaper. Cosmetic surgery is also rising in
Ecuador.
They now call it “medical tourism”.
.

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