The Wanderer’s Health Care Review

There is a Mexican woman who has partially restored the Wanderer’s faith in humanity. She’s Dr. Olga, who, along with her husband Rigoberto (also a doctor), runs the clinic in Punta Mita, Mexico, at the northwest corner of Banderas Bay.

Most of the locals in Punta Mita are very poor, while most of the tourists stay ‘behind the gates’ at the Four Seasons or the St. Regis hotels. The tourists are obviously at the opposite end of the wealth spectrum.

The Wanderer has had good doctors in his time, but he can’t think of one who was as competent, patient, thorough and obviously caring as Dr. Olga.

Given the free medical care that she dispenses to locals without jobs or money, and the low rates she charges for locals, the Wanderer can’t believe she’s got all state-of-the art equipment.

For example, the Wanderer was declared medically unfit to serve in the military in the 1960s because of a perforated ear drum he’d gotten while surfing. He’d seen several doctors about it, but not one had ever shown him what it looked like. Well, the Wanderer went to see Dr. Olga for a cough that had persisted since the recent Baja Ha-Ha rally, and in the middle of the visit she whipped out a camera on a stick, stuck it in the Wanderer’s ear, and displayed big images of both inner ears on her computer. She then very patiently explained what everything was, from hairs, to bones, to veins, to the hole itself.

Olga and her husband are in the midst of installing a state-of-the-art digital X-ray machine and other facilities, as well as getting an ambulance.

Did we mention that either Dr. Olga or Dr. Rigoberto answers their phone 24 hours a day? You don’t get an answering service; you get one of the doctors. They also make house calls and have also made ‘boat calls’. The two also frequently escort patients who need greater care to the major hospitals in Vallarta.

In the Wanderer’s opinion, Dr. Olga is the epitome of what a doctor should be. He doesn’t know what it costs to get a half-hour consultation with a doctor in the States these days, and he’s too embarrassed to say how ridiculously low his ‘local rate’ was, but you can get an idea from the fact that Dr. Olga’s typical consultation fee for tourists is $25.

If you’re on a boat in the Banderas Bay area, there are a number of good doctors around. If you’re in Mita area of Banderas Bay, the Wanderer recommends Dr. Olga and Dr. Rigoberto. Their clinic is on the main street in Mita across from the restaurants.

After prescribing several medicines for the Wanderer’s persistent cough, Dr. Olga said he needed to take them with a meal. So Doña de Mallorca and the Wanderer went to El Coral restaurant, at the far end of restaurant row in Punta Mita. They both ordered the breakfast special: a sweet bread, fresh cantaloupe and fresh pineapple, fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, a Mexican omelet, beans and toast. The total bill for the two of us came to less than $10 US. Mind you, this was at a restaurant right on the sand in front of Mita’s most popular surf break, and it was 85 degrees in the middle of December.

Wish you could be here with us, because the weather, the food and the health care are all excellent and inexpensive.

If you’ve had a good health-care experience while cruising, we’d like to hear about it.