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Last Updated on August 24, 2022 by Natalie

I’ve lived in Mexico for almost 5 years and avoided a trip to the emergency room here, until this week. Thankfully, I’m fine and my experience here in an ER in Queretaro, Mexico went well. So, what’s it like going to the emergency room in Mexico?

What’s it like going to the emergency room in Mexico?

Since I’m an expat here in Queretaro, Mexico, my experience will be a little different as far as the support systems I have in place. My husband’s company provides us with a person who is on call for various things we need, such as medical attention. This service is invaluable – especially during this trip to the hospital. She was able to pick me up and take me to the ER since I wasn’t able to drive. My husband was able to come home and take care of the kids since I had her assistance in getting to the ER.

Disclaimer

Blissmersion is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Posts on this site might contain affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission. This post is for informational purposes only and depicts my personal experiences with the private medical system and professionals with whom I’ve had contact. The experiences of others will vary widely.

My personal experience

My day felt like it started normally, but…

One morning, I was still in bed and sort of awake. I was laying on my stomach and turned my head and had a dizzy spell. It passed and when I did wake up and get out of bed, I felt okay. I debated asking my husband to work from home, but I decided that I was probably fine. Though he has the ability to work from home, most of the time, he needs to go into the office for various reasons.

I went about my morning. I had a meeting with my kids’ teacher at school. One of the supports my husband’s company offers is a relocation service that helps us with all kinds of things, including school and medical situations. This morning, she was acting as my translator during a meeting.

I did decide that I needed to see a doctor, but it wasn’t urgent

After the meeting, I did ask her to go ahead and schedule an appointment for me with an orthopedic doctor, as I knew that I needed to have my neck looked at and I couldn’t put it off anymore. In retrospect, I realized that my issues went back at least as far as mid-December.

I went home, walked a mile, fixed food, and continued my normal every day stuff. I usually do a lot more of things like writing or working on videos for the Blissmersion YouTube channel, but I wasn’t feeling it. Already, my neck was so uncomfortable. I decided to do a stretch that usually helps. Instead, it made me dizzy. Thinking that I would then try putting hot and cold compresses on my neck, I tried to go up the stairs and realized that I wasn’t sure I could get up the stairs because of still being dizzy. Okay, cold compress it was!

Our freezer is under the fridge and when I bent over to look for the cold compress, I immediately got dizzy again. My natural reaction to dizziness is to get as low to the ground as possible so I don’t fall. However, laying down made everything spin so badly, it felt like I was spinning down into a hole. I got really scared that I was going to pass out and I needed to make sure the kids were taken care of!

This is the moment that I was even more thankful for my support system

I immediately texted my translator or concierge as we sometimes call her services (she will do nearly anything that is needed to help out the expats from my husband’s company) and told her that I was really dizzy and that I thought I needed to see a doctor today.

Then, I did something that I never do. I called my husband at work without texting first. I know I sounded panicky when I said, “Do you think you can come home soon and work from home the rest of the day and tomorrow?”

Without hesitation,  he said yes and was gathering his things before we were even off the phone. I told him that I was really dizzy and couldn’t drive, so I needed him to pick up the kids from school and I was going to go to the ER.

The closest emergency room

The closest hospital to me is where I requested she take me, even though her service typically recommends another one that is a little further away. It worked out well, as the hospital closest to me is so new and clean and comfortable that I was impressed.

I was also really worried because being dizzy without knowing the cause is scarier than I thought something like that would be.

The hospital allowed her to come into the ER with me and act as my translator. The nurse they gave me did speak English, which was really nice, too. However, the doctors claimed to not speak English (though, I’m about 95% sure each doctor did understand English). I’m in a Spanish speaking country, so I don’t expect everyone to speak English. And due to my condition and being a little panicked, even with my translator there, I couldn’t remember some pretty basic things: like the name of the medication to which I have an allergy. I told them I’d know if it I heard it but I couldn’t access that memory. Or much Spanish.

Once they gave me several medications, that short term memory loss did get a little worse, too. I didn’t feel loopy or high, just couldn’t remember a few things. Also, it felt like nothing really helped the dizziness.

Going to get an x-ray

The nurse took blood and shortly after that, I was taken by wheelchair to get an x-ray. I’d already taken off all my jewelry and left it in my purse with my translator. While she couldn’t go with me to the x-ray, the nurse who speaks English did.

After the x-ray, I was taken back to my little curtain room in the ER. Where I could just sit in the bed and relax. Which I will admit was difficult until I received my diagnosis.

The ER doctor, who was great, in my opinion, asked me if I’d been in an accident because my neck was sprained. She told us that the Orthopedic doctor was coming in to look at someone else and that he would come look at me, too. The neck sprain explained the pain in the my neck, though I have no idea how it happened.

However, even with my neck being sprained, the diagnosis was Vertigo.

Let’s talk about my preconceived notions of vertigo: I didn’t realize it was that bad! I’m thankful that it wasn’t a worse diagnosis because I was seriously worried that I was on the verge of having a stroke or a brain aneurysm. Hey, my anxiety will take things to the extreme sometimes.

Going to Urgencias in Mexico

I’m betting that the vast majority of people reading this are going to be tourists in Mexico. Since the majority of American tourists are hitting up hotspots like Cabo and Cancun, if you have the need to go to the ER in Mexico, it will be in those areas. I’m willing to bet that many doctors and nurses working in hospitals in Cancun and Cabo do speak English. It’s also helpful to request an English speaking nurse or doctor – even that help will be highly beneficial.

I recommend writing down everything they give you while in the hospital. I was given six different things and I personally believe that I didn’t need everything. I didn’t try to refuse anything as I normally would, just because I was fairly freaked out and not sure what was wrong. My translator did write down everything. Additionally, once I got my prescriptions, I did research everything as I normally do. I highly recommend doing this, as there are often different things prescribed here than in the US and you definitely want to understand the side effects before taking them. At least one of my prescribed medications had side effects listed like “may cause dizziness or vertigo.” For me, that med did cause me a lot of extra dizziness. It was a pain medication, for reference.

As I have been here for several years and visited many doctors either for me or my kids, I have noticed that the prescribing several medications is a trend. Sometimes, things are used here that aren’t in the US. You have to keep your own eye on your health and understand the consequences of what you’re taking.

I usually do research each medication prescribed before filling it, just in case the risks of taking it are potentially too severe for the problem it may or may not solve.

Paying for your medical care in Mexico

Upon leaving the hospital, you will be required to pay 100% of the cost of your medical care. While it may eventually be covered by insurance if you’ve purchased medical insurance, it will be due in full at the time you are leaving. In Queretaro, my ER visit only cost a few hundred dollars including the individual doctors’ bills. In the touristy areas, it could cost quite a bit more.

For example, we visited the on-site physician at our resort in Cabo (2019) and it was about $100 USD upfront, which is incredibly expensive here. If you have a non-emergency, you can take a taxi or ride-app (if available) to Walmart or a Farmacia and receive medical care for much less. At this time, I was living in Celaya, Guanajuato and a normal office visit cost between 400 pesos and 700 pesos (approximately $20 USD to $35 USD).

In Queretaro, my follow up appointments with the doctors in their offices cost 900 pesos (approximately $45 in the April 2022 exchange rate).

If you do purchase travel insurance (and I recommend it), you can contact the company and figure out payment options should you have a large medical bill in Mexico. An expat I knew had emergency surgery and had to pay the $13,000 USD in full before she was allowed to leave the hospital. That was the price in Queretaro. Prices will vary all over Mexico, even from hospital to hospital.

Other things

While I have personally had mostly positive experiences with the medical community here, I have seen a few doctors I didn’t care for and I believe didn’t provide good service. If you are coming to Mexico as a medical tourist, do your research. Cosmetic procedures are very common here and while there are many good doctors, I do have one horror story regarding this and it’s why I recommend research, research, and more research.

Around two weeks after we moved to Mexico, an expat living in our neighborhood died due to complications of her cosmetic procedure. The details are incredibly fuzzy on this and different people had different details, making it impossible for me to discern what actually happened. Several people blamed the doctor in question. I was told that even a little research done after the fact indicated the doctor was known to have these issues. Several years later, another person said that the doctor was a good doctor. Yet another person said that when the woman in question had called the doctor and said she wasn’t feeling well that the doctor told her it was normal.

Do your due diligence if this is something you are considering. Even procedures done by the best doctors can have complications and it’s something to remember as a possibility if you want to come to a foreign country for your operation.

If you do have a medical procedure here and you feel bad afterwards, don’t hesitate to visit the emergency room. I’ve seen and heard both sides of this  – of people having botched surgeries, of people dying after surgeries, and of people healing from their surgeries without any problems at all. I mention it at all because I have heard several stories of complications, though most thankfully don’t have a tragic outcome.

In conclusion

If you have the need to visit the emergency room in Mexico, you are likely to receive decent medical care. I felt so fortunate to see excellent doctors in the ER and during follow up appointments. Though I’d overall prefer to avoid hospitals, I had a nice experience in a beautiful hospital in Queretaro.

Have you had to visit an ER in Mexico or had surgery here? The best feedback come from my readers. Please leave a comment with your questions or your experiences. Thank you!

 

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