In going through my receipts for the past couple of weeks I was somewhat
surprised to see that we paid more to take our dog Daisy MacGregor to the
veterinarian than we paid for the Hospital Emergency Room visit when my
girlfriend insisted on a checkup for dengue...

 Admittedly our little dog did have three injections because of some kind
of a gastric infection and I only had two highly trained emergency medical
Doctors look me over.

 Hospital CIMA* is supposedly the best hospital not just in Costa Rica but
in all of Central America. Although CIMA actually stands for 'Centro
Internacional de Medicina', CIMA also means peak or pinnacle, and signifies
not only the mountainous surroundings of the hospitals, but the quality of
healthcare they provide.

 When we went to the Emergency Room, we waited for about eight minutes to
be seen, two different Doctors - both of whom spoke fluent English -
attended to me with their prodding and questioning before diagnosing dengue
which can be troublesome for some but, thankfully was no worse than a bad
cold for me and we were then on our way home.

 Oh! How much was my emergency room bill you ask?

c6,157.62 colones which is less than US$12. My son spends far more than
that taking his girlfriend to a movie in New Jersey!

 Thank goodness the hospital accepts credit cards. 

   www.welovecostarica.com  

 I have a local health insurance provider here in Costa Rica. Recently I had surgery on my hand for a cist that had formed and was restricting my range of motion. having never used my insurance I was curious to see what would happen. Two office calls with Xrays and three hours at CIMA for outpatient surgery was a breeze. Now time to pay up! Well as you can imagine when I got my bill I was even more pleased. Total less than $100 US dollars. David Roller

WE spent $5. at the Mercado in Escazu and this is what we got. PURA VIDA