Medical stuff

Janet has not been feeling well for the past week or so, though she is feeling somewhat better now. Her knee has been giving her pain for about 2 weeks- she thinks it might have started after a yoga class. She got a recommendation of a good doctor at one of the hospitals here - Wockhardt. This hospital has some affiliation with Harvard Medical School. We also saw it written up in the NY times before we came over last fall. The article was about how many people were coming to India for certain kinds of treatment due to the lower costs. In some cases, insurance companies will pay the cost to come over because it ends up being much cheaper over all. In general the doctors seem good. The costs are so low that we have not submitted anything for re-imbursement with our insurance so far. Janet just had an MRI and x-ray done- total cost about $130 and that is our largest expense so far.
Janet also had the flu- that is what seems better today. She knew she had it last Thursday and was quite miserable on Sat- Mon. and started feeling much better Tuesday.
This Friday Jim is signed up to have a "health check" done. This is a pretty comprehensive set of tests including blood test, ekg, stress test, and numerous others that take more than half a day to go through. The cost will be low too.
Of course, these costs are very low compared to what we are used too, but they are not so cheap relative to typical Indian salaries. Still they are a lower fraction of income. These hospitals are private ones- there are also government hospitals where care is free or even less expensive. People tell us the care is quite good at those, but it seems that most who can afford it, go to the private hospitals.
Prescription medications are generally available over the counter and they too, are not expensive. One does have to worry that they might be counterfeit drugs. The names of drugs are different from what we are used to, so this can be confusing, but the druggists generally seem to be able to find the right equivalent.
We'll see how Janet's knee does. Jim is hoping he doesn't get the flu. He has not have any worrisome illnesses since mid- January, though we both have minor complaints.