Andres Oppenheimer, a popular and sometimes controversial columnist for the Miami Herald, has generated a buzz on the newspaper’s website with his personal account of the healthcare he received in Mexico, where he was hospitalized for three weeks after a potentially life-threatening emergency. Oppenheimer was stricken during dinner and damaged his esophagus when he became ill. He had a rare medical condition called Boerhaave Syndrome, which, left unattended, can be fatal. He writes:

By the time the ambulance arrived at the nearest hospital — the Angeles Mocel hospital — they had convened a first-class team of physicians who were awaiting me. It didn’t take long for Dr. Jorge Salas, the lung doctor who presided over the team, to rule out a heart attack and enlist thoracic surgeon Dr. Patricio Santillan for an operation to remove the more than four pints of gastric fluid in my chest. After a six-hour operation, I spent two weeks in intensive care and another week in a single-bed room until I was released — with all tests showing excellent results — on June 28. Doctors tell me that I should be back to normal in a matter of weeks.

The full article is here:

To your health: You can care for it abroad

Oppenheimer is quick to point out that he is something of a VIP, and perhaps got better care than would the average tourist. “Medical tourism experts warn that there are both good hospitals and lousy hospitals in Mexico,” he adds. “You can land in a bad one, and you are history (plus you can forget about suing anybody for malpractice).”

He advises checking the accreditation of hospitals and doctors before traveling abroad for medical care. Increasingly, the top hospitals in Mexico are working with companies such as BridgeHealth to insure end-to-end quality for medical travelers and tourists.

Bottom line — the total bill for Oppenheimer’s care was $42,000, compared to the $170,000 it would have been in the United States. And his life was saved. His words, not mine.

His conclusion?

If Mexican doctors and nurses give their regular patients just a fraction of the royal treatment that they gave me, they are offering a much more personalized service than one can find in most U.S. hospitals. Good healthcare with personal warmth could become a major draw for potential medical tourists, and a huge boon for Latin America’s economies.