Medical & Dental Tourism while sitting?

The following description in a current listing for a month long sit in Greece caught my attention:
“There are both private and public health facilities. We use an excellent German doctor as our GP… There are first class dentists too, should the need arise!”

As someone who has lived in many different countries and now lives in Switzerland, where all medical and dental procedures are expensive, I’ve often thought about returning to my former dentists in Prague or Paris for a quick teeth cleaning and check up.

When we lived in Paris, I recommended that an American friend have her tooth crowned by my French dentist. The savings between having the dental work done in the USA or in France would have more than covered my friend’s flight to Paris.

Of course, caring for a HO’s pets is always our top priority, so it wouldn’t be possible to have anything major done – but have any sitters had any minor dental work done while on a sit? If so, was it a good experience?

I live in the US but have dental checkups when I visit my family in Ireland. I’m not housesitting, but it is comparable.

2 Likes

I had a root canal done in Mexico … in San Miguel de Allende, when a tooth became infected on a 3 month sit. Best dentistry experience I’ve ever had at a fraction of the price in UK. The dentist was trained in Canada and recommended by our US home owners.

5 Likes

Mr Itchy feet developed a terrible toothache while we were on a 3 week sitting in Perth Australia. We found a dentist and made an appointment within 2 hours. It was superb service. The dentist recommended that the tooth came out and it would cost AUS $400. As we have the NHS service in the UK the dentist prescribed a course of anitibiotics to last him until he returned home.
Now - if you want any details of hospital visits all over the world, we have a catalogue! It is a unique way of sightseeing while searching the hospitals out!

5 Likes

@Vanessa-Admin Having an infected tooth while away from home couldn’t have been much fun! Good thing that the US home owners were able to direct you to a skilled dentist.

1 Like

@Itchyfeet It sounds as if Mr. Itchy Feet and you have had some adventurous experiences. Your catalogue of hospital visits all over the world would make an interesting read! :slight_smile:

1 Like

@Lassie Dental care in the USA can be pricey. It’s helpful to know that it’s less expensive in Ireland. It’s fortunate that you have family there.

1 Like

I had what I thought was an abscess whilst visiting my husbands mum in Greece last year. His mum took me to her neighbour who called her daughter ( A Doctor ) . The daughter came, took a look and gave me a prescription to take to her neice ( A Pharmacist ).
I thanked her and asked how much I owed her, - some discussion went on in Greek and my husbands mum produced a bag of tomatoes from her garden and handed them to the doctor - everyone was happy!

8 Likes

@provence Thanks for the excellent tip and including a photo of the EU insurance card. I lived in EU countries for 8 years and didn’t know it existed. I was thrilled with my carte vitale in France.

@Colin Payment by garden fresh tomatoes. I love it! :slight_smile: It reminds me of when my Korean sister-in-law gave some homemade kimchi to the Korean doctor who was performing surgery on my mother. My mother still had to pay for the operation but she was convinced that the surgeon took better care of her thanks to the kimchi.

@anon36831737 Good to know about the price of glasses in Vietnam and the quick delivery! From reading your Forum posts, I’ve gathered that you do a lot of sits in Asia. We lived in the Philippines and Indonesia and absolutely love that part of the world. I only wish that it didn’t require such a long plane trip to get there.

2 Likes

Maybe @Itchyfeet I could had to your catalogue a stay in a portuguese hospital for a broken hip ?! That was an experience.
As far as I am concerned I always tend to avoid medical concern while on a trip abroad… being french, having fantastic national health insurance (thanks to France !) I prefer do that while at home.

1 Like

Dental care experiences:
Costa Rica- the best. Husband had a crown replaced in Liberia and the place was super fancy, very nice, though not as cheap as other locations (cheaper than US)
Mexico- Husband had crown replaced for very cheap, but that same crown did crack and fall out 2 years later…
Thailand- decided to check out the dental tourism of Chiang Mai. Very nice looking clinics, but the “cleaning” was more like a tooth brushing. Not the type of cleaning we have had in the US.

2 Likes

Would love to see your catalog. Thank you

1 Like

It’s interesting and I am curious to explore
This but Thailand is now ranking very high in standard of care in healthcare.

Hi @Mary-Kay @Françoise-et-Youn @Amparo
… have said that they would be interested in our hospital catalogue. As over 1800 members are probably not interested , I will just give a taster

We received an invitation to cat sit in a town near Boston USA. We wondered why they had chosen us as we live in the UK. Not long after our arrival they were probably wondering the same.
They picked us up from the airport in the early evening, took us to their beautiful house and prepared a barbeque with strips of steak among other things. During our meal, Mr Itchyfeet started to choke to my embarrassment. This went on for quite some time and he couldn’t swallow. He went outside with a bottle of water to be joined by Mr HO who then pointed out the sights of the town. Mr I was still in a great deal of discomfort and couldn’t speak. We all went to bed and Mrs HO advised us to knock on their bedroom door if things didn’t improve. Mr I decided to take up that offer and Mrs HO promptly got up and took him to the ER. On the way, with Mr I not able to concentrate nor speak, she pointed out the tourist sights to the left and right all the way to the hospital. The steak was stuck and he had to have an operation to remove it and was diagnosed with Hiatus Hernia and Barratts Oesophagus. They returned home and we all had a little sleep. Next morning, we were supposed to drive them to the airport but Mr I was still drugged up. I offered to drive and hoped that they would refuse as I don’t think we would be here to tell the tale if I had to negotiate the highways of Boston. They took a taxi.
They were very gracious and tackled it all as if it was an everyday occurrence and we received a glowing review.

We have also attended hospitals in New Zealand, Guernsey, the UK and others with an unconnected condition - those stories are for another day…
Apart from that, he is in excellent health!!!

8 Likes

@Itchyfeet As an American whose son lives in Boston, I have a few thoughts on your post.

*Why did the HO prepare steak and not lobstah (said with a Boston accent)? That would have given you a taste of the local food and perhaps a piece of lobster wouldn’t have gotten lodged in Mr I’s throat. :wink: But perhaps Mr I is allergic to shellfish, in which case you still would have had the opportunity to visit one of the excellent medical facilities in Boston.

*Thank goodness that you didn’t have to drive the HOs to the airport. Boston drivers are notoriously bad and the pot holes add another dimension to the excitement of driving there.

Thanks for sharing chapter one of your hospital catalog with us. I look forward to reading future chapters!

2 Likes

I love it ! Hilarious (don’t tell Mr I) !
:rofl: :rofl:
Looking forward to reading chapter 2…
When it is about broken bones I will add our little adventure in Portugal. Portugese emergency when you don’t speak portugese is a good laugh too.
Unfortunately my english is not good enough to tell it with your style @Itchyfeet, though my english is better than my portugese…

2 Likes

After our little experience of portugese private hospital ( :moneybag: :yen: :euro: :euro:) I decided to ask for our European health cards.
We received it in january 2019.
Right on time for 1st lockdown !
We haven’t crossed any border since.
It lasts until december 2021… No trip scheduled till that date… Un coup pour rien ! Dry run should you say ?

@Angela_L , do you think the topic here should be changed to **emphasised textdental and medical tourism while sitting?
@Itchyfeet , thank you for sharing your story!
Please continue. As a nurse, I am interested in all things medical. I can also relate three more medical stories while traveling. I was a few states away and was pretty sure I picked a dreaded deer tick off myself. My insurance would not cover me so I had to pay out-of-pocket for an urgent care visit and 200 mg of doxycycline. On a trip to Europe I took many years ago, a lady who took diuretics and had heart disease accompanied her daughter on the tour bus we spent days on. The bus had no restroom. Eventually, the woman was so sick she had to be hospitalized in a foreign country-can’t recall which one, we hit ten of them. A friend of mine who flew from California to Germany decided she’d like to sleep through the flight so she took a Benadryl. When they landed she had to be rushed to the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. For anyone who doesn’t already know this, make sure you get up and move around when possible on a long plane trip and at the very least, do six toe scrunches every hour to keep the blood in your legs from pooling and forming a clot that could travel to other parts of your body, especially your lungs.

2 Likes

Hi @mars and a good suggestion… I’ve made that change. Angela is off today, otherwise I’m sure she would have answered :slight_smile:

1 Like

I live in the US and broke my arm 2 weeks ago when visiting my native Ireland. I needed surgery and it was interesting to see the different healthcare system in action.

I had travel insurance, so that should cover the costs but I’m very curious to see what the final cost will be, compared to similar surgery that I had in the US a year ago. Even if the hospital had said that my surgery could wait until I returned to the US, I would have asked for it to be done in Ireland to save money (my US medical insurance would not cover as much as my travel insurance covers).

I was in a public hospital in Ireland, and the non-surgical areas were shabbier than hospitals I have used in the US. However, the pre-op and surgery rooms were highly sophisticated, and the medical care was wonderful. Given that most people get their hospital treatment for free, I can see why some areas of the hospital were more crowded and dated than US hospitals. The Irish hospitals don’t have the money that US hospitals have, but still provided excellent care.

1 Like