Losing it in Mexico and other stories of medical tourism

Like they say in the film, there are eight million stories in the naked city.

There are at least as many stories about medical tourism - that thing where people leave their (usually developed) country to get medical treatment in another (frequently developing) country at their own expense.

I've been trying to tell a few of those stories over the past year and a bit. It's an effort to reflect what researchers are discovering about the largely unmonitored international trade in health services in all of its complexity.

The latest stories are now on the CBC website:

Disney's plan to trademark Día de los Muertos: ¡Híjole, mano!

Disney has backed off its bid to trademark the name "Día de los Muertos" and has dropped plans to make a Pixar film by the same name, according to the OC Weekly. 

Possibly some people will be disappointed that they will not be able to find Día de los Muertos-trademarked Disney products including:

" chewing gum; breakfast cereals and preparations made from cereals; cereal bars; bread; muffins; muffin bars; pastry; waffles; pancakes; cookies; crackers; biscuits; popcorn; corn chips; pretzels; puddings; coffee; tea; cocoa; sugar; rice; flour; ices; ice; honey; condiments; sauces; spices; pizza; pasta and noodles; macaroni and cheese; frozen meals consisting primarily of pasta or rice; staple foods"

But, probably not.

The big purge

The season of packing and moving and storing and waiting continues. I'm behind in my blogging, with various things going on at once. I'll try to catch up, one topic at a time. Tonight's topic (linked below) is letting go of stuff - I've attempted to link it here from my other neglected blog about our Victoria renovations. Hope it works!

A renovation vacation

Had a week of vacation time to burn off before the end of March, and we entertained the thought we might actually get away to Mérida for a break.  Instead, it has turned out to be a working vacation. We're packing up and emptying our overstuffed house for the renovation that's actually going to start next week.

There have been so many delays and false starts that I thought this project would never happen, so I'm excited but still not quite believing it. (If you're interested I posted a bit more about it on my renovation blog.)

Still, we have decamped for a few months to a rented 60s split level. It's close to Fallingdowne and just a block from the beach. It's like a consolation prize - not Mérida or a Gulf Coast village, but it feels like a vacation. 

The most important thing, perhaps, is the dogs like it.

Ethical dilemmas in medical tourism

San Javier hospital in Nuevo Vallarta - the area's newest private facility catering to bariatric patients.

Casa Magna Marriott resort in Puerta Vallarta
 - part of the package for medical tourists.

What keeps me away from Mérida and México in recent months is the same thing that attracts thousands of others. I'm reminded of it every time I open a web page and some invisible algorithm loads it up with flashing, blinking ads for weight-loss surgery in Tijuana or high-quality dental work in Cancun.

Quite a lot of my time lately is spent writing and talking and thinking about medical tourism.


One side of the story is the ethical dimension: who benefits, who is hurt, and what are the implications of our decisions to leave our home country for treatment? That's the side that is explored this week on the CBC program, The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2013/02/25/ethical-dilemmas-surrounding-medical-tourism/


More to come.

Yucatán from space

Progreso from Space Station (Cmdr. Chris Hadfield)

One of the most mind-expanding things going these days, for me anyway, is @Cmdr_Hadfield's Twitter feed from the Space Station orbiting earth.

Chris Hadfield's been sharing the views of everything from his zero-gravity living and working quarters to images of Earth. His posts are thoughtful, educational, whimsical, funny. Last night (at least it was last night here in Victoria) he posted images of Progreso and Mérida as he was passing by.

Hello down there!

Merida from space? (Cmdr Chris Hadfield)

Long-distance learning

A couple of interesting pieces about Mexico's legal system and the Mayan "Apocalypse" in the Canadian media this week.

David Johnston is Canada's Governor General, who serves as the Queen's representative in our Commonwealth country. Before he was appointed to that job he was a distinguished legal scholar. In The Globe and Mail newspaper this week he writes about the collaboration with Mexico to help reform the legal system: "Canada and Mexico, partners in the pursuit of justice".

Then last night the CBC Radio program Ideas broadcast this hour-long documentary about the Mayan calendar. Fascinating - for the first time I actually began to comprehend some tiny part of the logic behind the elaborate cycles of days and the tun and katun and baktun. The doc is called "The End of Days".

"In Lak'ech."