Friday, October 14, 2011

What if we get sick?

Today Tara from the consulate arranged a visit to two hospitals and a lab for routine tests. Accompanying us was Dr. Albert who is on retainer to the consulate for 40% of his time and in private practice otherwise. He is an Indonesian. There were 5 Americans on the tour. The purpose was to show us where the hospitals were and how to use them if we need to. The hospitals, Mitra and Siloam, were obviously two of the best. Both are for private patients only and seemed pretty good (although I hope I never have to find out for sure).
Unlike the US, we were encouraged to go to the emergency room for anything other than routine. They have a
"triage" system of red, green, and yellow. Yellow and red go straight to the emergency room, while green gets to see a doctor not so urgently. Interestingly, although they have 10 beds in emergency, no one was in there. We were treated like visiting royalty with just about everyone on the marketing team who could speak English accompanying us as we saw operating rooms and patient rooms and ICU. They have MRI and CT. Siloam even has an ambulance service.
Some prices might be of interest. They have several levels of patient rooms. They were quite proud of their super VIP rooms which have a bed for the patient, a bed for a family member, a dining table, sofa, chairs, 2 televisions, microwave, refrigerator, etc. Of course private bath. The price is $200 per night.
They also indicated the government was pushing them to make some cheaper rooms available so there are rooms with 5 or 6 or 7 patients in one room in individual cubicles. Those prices vary with the number of people in the room- the seven person room is $15 per night.
Siloam is also undergoing an accreditation process to meet standards set by an international consortium. They will be done by next year and will be the only hospital in Surabaya and only one of only four in Indonesia.

Although the hospital was overall very quiet, one area was very busy. That was in vitro fertilization. One cycle of treatment costs about $3000 to $5000. ( 45% success rate). I don't know what it would cost in the US, but I am sure a lot more.
Dr Albert strongly recommended rabies shots if we are going to Bali. They are about one-fifth the price here so I guess we'll start the series of three.
Again, good comforting information, but I hope not to need it.

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