- Thread starter Dolores
- Start date
Woman survives retainer wall collapse; begins to tell her story
There's a Hospital Central de las Fuerzas Armadas nearby, there are always some ambulances there and they could arrive in 10 minutes or less, if they wanted to. Every day I see them driving with sirens and lights on on av. Ortega y Gasset with crazy speed and maneuvers, and sometimes AMET is helping them to get thru the traffic.
Anyone who expects first world service in a third world country is destined to be disappointed here.
She isn't asking for money, she is asking people to help a woman who was made a widow because her husband died. A widow who has 4 kids to feed now.
Actually, the medical service in private clinics here in DR is better than in some first world countries, but first responders and emergency services is a different story. Normally you don't wait for an ambulance here, you get into any car you can find (even in a cargo box of the pickup truck) and go to the emergency room in a nearest hospital.
It probably depends more on how you look like. No hospital will reject a white foreigner or a white Dominican who looks rich. They may ask for some deposit, but they will do all treatment needed and then hold him/her as a hostage until he or somebody else pays all the bills.
But for an average looking Dominican the story may be different, since everybody knows that average Dominicans don't like to pay their bills. That's why private hospitals reject their own people (sometimes leaving them to die) in situations where they wouldn't reject a tourist/foreigner or a person who looks like he can pay. This is a good example of Dominican 'culture' turns against themselves.
A little off-topic, but my Dominican dentist doesn't have any Dominican patients at all, only foreigners. I ask him Why? The answer is 'Because Dominicans don't like to pay'.
Yes, there are some exceptions. I had cataract surgery done here at a private clinic. Top notch service.
A friend of mine from England was in a moto accident and was taken to Bournegal (private) in Pto. Plata. I don't remember how much deposit he had to pay, but they wouldn't release him until he paid his $11,000 USD bill.
I was scrolling to the end so I could make the same point that was missed by the original poster. She's helping a friend. Good point.
We all know that reporters in the DR lack what it takes to write up a reasonable and logical story. This report is written very poorly and confusing manner. Wilson Saint Anne the husband and now widower was not the one who perished, it was his wife Nancy Saint Anne who died. She is not listed on the official list of the dead in the incident. The story has holes in it probably because it was badly written. In the paper Diario Libre the report was updated four times as the reporter tried to get the story straight.
I fully agree with you on all things here. It's like with many/most things in the DR, lot's of fancy publicity/advertising, but very little if any real/trustworthy action behind the fancy words... Unfortunately...
Yes, I know too well what happens with cell phone signals with rain...
True. This is not DR-only issue however. In these days of "realtime" news feeds, media outlets hire anyone with a face to stand by the keyboard redacting the latest news to hit the press. It's a race to see who gets the updates out the fastest and it's super error prone.
It is unfortunate that the hospitals in this country do not care if someone lives or dies all the care about is insurance or money. There is no such thing as the Hippocratic oath. Here it is all BS.
