Most important change for your bubble of DR?

Anastacio

Banned
Feb 22, 2010
2,965
235
0
Doesn't matter where you are living in the country, this is about the ONE thing that you would change above all about where you live that would make life so much better for you only, or everyone, or even the wildlife, doesn't matter. If a wish was to be granted, what would you get, or change. This can not include masses, like the entire police force or government.

If they would make the subway go from the Airport into central my life would be complete. If it could be extended so we could visit the beach without drink driving then that would be even better.
My wish!!
 

tflea

Bronze
Jun 11, 2006
1,839
164
63
Education

High quality, mandatory education grades K-12, free to all.
 

Squat

Tropical geek in Las Terrenas
Jan 1, 2002
2,239
168
63
If by a magic touch someone would make Dominicans alergic to noise & loud music, I would enjoy it...
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
The NHS, warts, superbugs, waiting lists and all. Even at its worst it is better than the abomination of the private system/insurance companies that we have to deal with here.
 

DavidZ

Silver
Aug 29, 2005
3,512
238
63
www.vipcigartours.com
Of the many, many serious issues affecting the lives of Dominicans and life in general in the DR, the one that affects my day to day life the most, that I would change first if I could would be the condition of the roads and the driving habits of (most) Dominicans....
 

Anastacio

Banned
Feb 22, 2010
2,965
235
0
the condition of the roads .

I'll say this quietly as I'll get a big disagreement, but have never thought the roads that bad, infact I consider them to be good for the most part, for what they are and where they go)
 

jrhartley

Gold
Sep 10, 2008
8,190
580
0
64
I think people would visit more areas of the country if the roads were better, you never know what the conditions are going to be like so dont actually explore as much as you should.....and I would wave a magic wand and make litter disappear
 

rice&beans

Silver
May 16, 2010
4,293
374
83
DRINKABLE WATER FROM A FAUCET


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/51418611@N05/5583179140/" title="water_faucet by bocachica64, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5150/5583179140_1fe73bf54a.jpg" width="357" height="500" alt="water_faucet"></a>

That would be nice........
 

Berzin

Banned
Nov 17, 2004
5,898
550
113
Though not a resident, one of the things I would like to see is not needing to have iron bars over all the windows and doors of private residences. It really is claustrophobic.

The ability to enjoy a drink and some conversation on the front/back porch with friends without feeling like a bird in a cage would be priceless.

Nothing ruins the experience for me more than security walls and iron bars all over everywhere. I know it's for safety, but that would be one thing I would like to see change.
 
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bri777

Bronze
Sep 11, 2010
1,008
19
38
Maybe not bubble but still....

Going thru customs
they took my nailpolish and my curling iron when I was leaving lol
did the custom guy give that to his girl or what ?
Manu
 

pelaut

Bronze
Aug 5, 2007
1,089
33
48
www.ThornlessPath.com
Ciramoya: I have used the NHS, the Swedish and the French systems for some years, and the Domiinican and Venezuelan "systems" for 30 years, as well as US Medicare.

If you have some resources, but you're not a movie star, a top policitician or Donald Trump sort of rich, the DR has the best medical facilities and doctors I've found in my broad experience ? mainly, I feel, because it's still relatively untrampled by social engineers, and many of the fine physicians here have edcuation and long experience in Europe, USA, Brazil, etc.

Maybe you should look around a bit.
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
Pelaut, it's precisely due to the fact that I've been here for over a decade and have "looked around" that I make that exasperated statement.

It's not so much the quality of the doctors - I've seen some good docs here. However, very few of them seem to have diagnostic skills. If they do possess these skills, they pretend not to, presumably to justify batteries of mostly unnecessary tests. They also crank up the drama to ensure that you do have those tests.

The most extreme of several similar situations I have experienced. When I was diagnosed with "a tumour" in my neck in 2005 the diagnosis was supposedly backed up with a CT scan, sonogram and biopsy ordered by the ENT specialist.

He had insisted I have these done in specific places, which just happened not to take insurance.

I sought a second opinion in London - (going private because I'm no longer eligible for the NHS treatment) and the opinion was that there was nothing there. Nothing. If there had been anything it would have been a swollen gland. Although I had to pay for a sonogram, the specialist never sent me a bill. He didn't say anything about crooked quacks, presumably out of professional loyalty and discretion, but I have a feeling that was what he was thinking.

You'd think the ENT specialist, CT scan, sonogram and biopsy would have been able to tell the difference between a swollen gland and a tumour...

These are not just quacks picked out of a hat. I've been here long enough to get recommendations from reliable people, including here on dr1.

But what gets me most is the system, which is so unashamedly about money above the patient's health and wellbeing - insurance companies that shaft you from all directions, lie about entitlement, delay approvals, at a time when people are anxious - again presumably in the hope that the victim will say "feck it, I'll pay for the damn thing".

Example - last year a member of my family had to have a minor op. It was done by a general surgeon. The insurance company approved the procedure before the operation, but then refused to pay on the grounds that "it should have been done by a surgeon specialised in a particular area of medicine", when it was the most simple and routine of procedures that any doctor would know how to do.

We changed insurance companies but in reality they are all the same.

At the moment we are trying to get the new company to authorise the removal of a small growth on my husband's eyelid. It is causing him discomfort, irritation and distorts his eyelid. They are trying to turn it down on the grounds that it is aesthetic and not medically necessary. WTF?

I could go on because there is more... don't get me started on the "ord?n de llegada" waiting system, where people have to miss a whole day's work to spend 15 minutes with a doctor.
 

Criss Colon

Platinum
Jan 2, 2002
21,843
191
0
38
yahoomail.com
Dominican Doctor Get A "Kick BacK" On All The "TESTS" They Order!!!!

Dominicans,rush to "La Clinica" at the least "So Called",illness,pain,cough,you name it!
The doctors,ALWAYS,order a complete blood analysis,chest x-ray,and ,for sure,a "Sonografia"!
Then they give you a list of medications a mile long,which ALWAYS,includes some "Antibioticos"!
SinceI have lived in the DR,16 years now!:ermm:, I have had surgery for a hernia,and skin cancer.I went to BOSTON MASSACHUSSETS for both!
I'm not so worried about having the surgery,they can do THAT! It's the post-op that worries me! Infections are common in the DR.They DON"T know how to prevent,or treat, post-op infections in the DR!
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
 

pelaut

Bronze
Aug 5, 2007
1,089
33
48
www.ThornlessPath.com
Chirmoya: I have no insurance. Haven't had in years. So costs are important to me as well as quality.

Even though my income is below the "poverty line" declared by the U.S. Government, medicine as practiced in the DR (and cost) permits me to see 4-5 doctors before making a decision as to which I might use. That's something not "allowed" by governments or insurances elsewhere. It also permits me to get any test I want BEFORE seeing a doctor. Unlike most other states, test results in the DR belong to ME — and the people that administer the tests spend TIME with me to ensure that I understand the results.

Armed with hard data from the tests, a printed precis of my medical history, my status and requirements, I then see the doctors, telling each that I am the physician (ME), and THEY are my consultants. Can you imagine such a routine in the "advanced" countries? Costs shall above all prohibit it. Nonetheless, protocol and rules and regulations OUTLAW it in the "advanced" countries.
I always find at least two of the 4-5 doctors with whom I am happy to deal. I do the same with dentists.

Time? Instead of 40 minutes with staff and 5 minutes with the physician as you get elsewhere with your insurances and gummint 'help', in the DR — no bigger that most of the "advanced" countries' cities, I get up to an hour with each doctor.

Cost? While visiting the States in 2003, a $5 blood test, which I must have regularly, cost me $347. Also on the same trip, a sonogram for my wife cost over $800. We couldn't keep the results, nor were we briefed much on them. We repeated it in CRESA (Sgo.) when we got back for only $8 — and of course got to keep the results after an extensive lecture on them from the radiologist.

"Order de llegada" I'll leave aside. Not only can it be swifter here than the demand-driven wait times of the "advanced" countries, but it also depends heavily on the persuasion skills of the care-seeker. I wheedle well.

I could go on with anecdotal evidence from Sweden, UK, France, the U.S. and several Asian countries where I lived with my children, but it is after all anecdotal, and subject to pooh-poohing by anyone. Suffice it to say that if one can find good docs and good clinics here, and if, as I have experienced, they are available for 1% to 25% of the cost of the same elsewhere (not counting travel and living expenses) — well then, I'll take the DR, thank you.
 

aarhus

Long live King Frederik X
Jun 10, 2008
4,412
1,987
113
Orden de llegada

Pelaut, it's precisely due to the fact that I've been here for over a decade and have "looked around" that I make that exasperated statement.

It's not so much the quality of the doctors - I've seen some good docs here. However, very few of them seem to have diagnostic skills. If they do possess these skills, they pretend not to, presumably to justify batteries of mostly unnecessary tests. They also crank up the drama to ensure that you do have those tests.

The most extreme of several similar situations I have experienced. When I was diagnosed with "a tumour" in my neck in 2005 the diagnosis was supposedly backed up with a CT scan, sonogram and biopsy ordered by the ENT specialist.

He had insisted I have these done in specific places, which just happened not to take insurance.

I sought a second opinion in London - (going private because I'm no longer eligible for the NHS treatment) and the opinion was that there was nothing there. Nothing. If there had been anything it would have been a swollen gland. Although I had to pay for a sonogram, the specialist never sent me a bill. He didn't say anything about crooked quacks, presumably out of professional loyalty and discretion, but I have a feeling that was what he was thinking.

You'd think the ENT specialist, CT scan, sonogram and biopsy would have been able to tell the difference between a swollen gland and a tumour...

These are not just quacks picked out of a hat. I've been here long enough to get recommendations from reliable people, including here on dr1.

But what gets me most is the system, which is so unashamedly about money above the patient's health and wellbeing - insurance companies that shaft you from all directions, lie about entitlement, delay approvals, at a time when people are anxious - again presumably in the hope that the victim will say "feck it, I'll pay for the damn thing".

Example - last year a member of my family had to have a minor op. It was done by a general surgeon. The insurance company approved the procedure before the operation, but then refused to pay on the grounds that "it should have been done by a surgeon specialised in a particular area of medicine", when it was the most simple and routine of procedures that any doctor would know how to do.

We changed insurance companies but in reality they are all the same.

At the moment we are trying to get the new company to authorise the removal of a small growth on my husband's eyelid. It is causing him discomfort, irritation and distorts his eyelid. They are trying to turn it down on the grounds that it is aesthetic and not medically necessary. WTF?

I could go on because there is more... don't get me started on the "ord?n de llegada" waiting system, where people have to miss a whole day's work to spend 15 minutes with a doctor.

The Orden de llegada. I laugh at how people come into the waiting room and asks who is the ulitmo. You of course you just arrived.

I agree with chirimoya. They always send you to do a lot of tests. I say no know. I say I dont need that test. I know it is not that serious. I just want a diagnosis and some medicin. I have learned to use the internet much more. Sites about health in my own language and in English. I study as much as I can before I see any doctor.
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
Everyone's experience is different and of course my anecdotes don't amount to hard evidence. I can only conclude that I must have been inordinately lucky in practically ALL my experiences with the NHS and cursed to the depths of hell in practically ALL my experiences with the DR private health system. :D

In the UK they would give you a GP's appointment, say for 9:15, and you'd wait no more than 10 minutes beyond that time, which means you'd only miss part of the morning at work. Here you have to arrive extra early to be first or one of the first on the list, and when the doctor finally swans in at 11 or so - providing s/he doesn't have an "emergency", the queue starts.

I also much prefer seeing general practitioners as they can deal with most issues; here you have to waste time playing "find the specialist".

Naturally, when you don't have insurance it's a lot smoother. They're practically falling over themselves to treat you.