Ole! Seniors choose nursing homes in Mexico

million baby boomers retire and the United States, rising health care costs, managers of nursing home Mexican expect more American seniors to the south, in the years come.

the proximity of Mexico to the U.S., low labor costs and warm climate, it is attractive, even if the residents that the quality of nursing care is highly variable in an industry that does that out of the ground there.

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After Jean Douglas turned 70, she realized she could not look after themselves any more. Her knees gave in, and winters in Bandon, Ore., have been increasingly difficult to bear alone. Douglas was shocked by the high cost and impersonal care with housing facilities near their homes. After searching the Internet for other options, she joined a small growing number of Americans who are cheap across the border to nursing homes in Mexico, where the sun shines and life is moving.

For $ 1,300 per month – one quarter of that received an average cost of nursing home in Oregon – Douglas studio, three meals a day, laundry and dry cleaning services and care 24 hours from an attentive staff, many of them speak English. She wakes up every morning next to a mountain lake sparkled, and the high average annual temperature is 79 degrees warmer. “It’s paradise,” says Douglas, 74 “If you live or help meet the needs, this is the place to be. I do not know that there is such a thing back (in the United States States), and certainly not for this amount of money. ”

An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 American retirees already live in Mexico, many of them in enclaves like San Miguel de Allende or the Chapala area, says David Warner, University of Texas public affairs professor who has studied phenomenon. There are no reliable data on the number living in nursing homes, but at least five sites are on Lake Chapala.

“You can barely afford to live in the U.S. anymore,” said Harry Kislevitz, 78, New York. A stroke victim, he moved into a convalescent home on the shores of the lake two years ago and credits the staff to help him back his speech and walking ability. “Here you can see the birds, smell the air, and it is delicious,” said Kislevitz. “You want to live.”

Many expatriates are Americans or Europeans, who retired here years ago and are now increasingly fragile. Others are not quite ready for a nursing home, but can offer to explore options such as home health services, nurses in Mexico at a fraction of U.S. prices.

Retirement homes are relatively new in Mexico, where the elderly, aging usually live with their families. There is little government regulation. Some places have suddenly gone bankrupt, forcing American residents to move. Some Mexican homes asperities, such as peeling paint or frayed sofas, that would turn off many Americans.

“I do not think for everybody,” said Thomas Kessler, whose mother suffers from manic depression and lives in a house in Ajijic. “But in fact they have kept our family finances from a cliff.”

Residents such as Richard Slater say they are happy in Mexico. Slater came to Lake Chapala four years ago and now lives in his own home in the Casa de Ancianos, surrounded by purple bougainvillea and pomegranate trees.

It has plenty of room for his two dogs and a little patio that he and three other U.S. citizens. He receives 24 hours of care and three meals a day in a comfortable kitchen prepared and served in a dining room bathed in sunlight. His house has a living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and dressing room.

For this Slater pays $ 550 per month, less than one tenth the rate of return home in Las Vegas. For another $ 140 per year, and full medical coverage by the Mexican government, including all his medicine and insulin for diabetes.

“It would cost me a fortune while in the U.S.,” said Slater, a boy of 65 years, retired.

One afternoon last year, lunch at Casa de Ancianos consisted of vegetable soup, beet salad, rice, Spanish, dogfish stuffed peppers, garlic bread and a choice of four two cakes and Jell-O salads. Slater neighbor does not like Mexican food, workers home care, where she cooks on a stove beside her bed.

Like many retirees, Slater satellite TV, so do not miss American news or programs. If he wants to see a movie or go shopping downtown, the taxi only $ 2 or $ 3. Guadalajara, a culturally rich city of four million inhabitants, is located just 30 miles.

Medical care, Slater relies on the Mexican Social Security Institute, or IMSS, which runs clinics and hospitals nationwide and allows foreigners to their program, even if they are part never worked in Mexico or paid taxes to support the system. He recently underwent surgery at a hospital in the gallbladder IMSS in Guadalajara, and he paid nothing.

Many nursing home employees speak English, and this doctor Slater.

La Casa de Ancianos has for foreigners in 2000, designed as part of efforts for the extra money, director Marlene Dunham said. He built the country, especially for Americans and use the resulting revenues to subsidize the cost of the 20 Mexican residents at home.

The program was so successful that the nursing home has plans for more than 12 cabins, a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi and a gazebo with picnic area. The nursing home now advertises on the Internet and through pamphlets distributed in the city. Some U.S. companies have also begun investing in assisted living facilities in Mexico, said Larry Minnix, president of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, which represents 5,800 nursing homes and related services.

However, Minnix cautioned that lax government regulation poses dangers to smaller houses.

“It’s the same danger you have to cross the border in search of cheaper medicines,” said Minnix. “If you can not know you, and you do not get people who you trust, you have an accident waiting to happen.”

For many nursing homes are run by private households, regulation by state health services is often incomplete. Organizations such as Beverly Ward of Casa Nostra and Maura Funes of El Paraiso, both in Ajijic, said that Mexican authorities inspected right once a year, unlike U.S. inspectors, a home visit may be more once a year.

The U.S. Embassy said it had no record of complaints against nursing homes in Mexico, but some residents of the Lake Chapala area reported bad experiences with real estate, real gone now.

The first home that Jean Douglas lived in after she was moved from Oregon occupied by “gossips and thieves,” she said. He left the company. Irene Chiara of Los Angeles also lived in a house that the authorities of the State of Jalisco has been closed.

“It was dirty and the food was very bad. It was all done in the microwave,” she said.

Some managers of Mexico also underestimate the costs and difficulties in managing a retirement home. Two hotels turned into assisted living facilities, The Spa in San Miguel de Allende and Melville in the Pacific Coast city of Mazatlán, recently abandoned the business, “said the manager.

“It’s very expensive to run,” said Luis Terán, manager of the Melville. Some managers said they were especially selective when admitting foreign nationals to ensure they will be able to pay. Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs and most U.S. insurance companies will not care or medicine, as long as patients outside the United States.

Some U.S. residents said they had doubts about the quality of medical facilities and Mexico would return to the U.S. when she was seriously ill. Jim May, 74, a resident of Casa de Ancianos said he recently decided to move to Texas to be closer to veterans’ hospitals.

The language barrier can be intimidating, and Food of Mexico can be very different, said some residents.

Some residents said they miss home and the difficulty in making friends with the residents of Mexico. “It’s a very nice place, but he is alone,” said Polly Coull, 99, of Seminole, Fla., resident Alicia Nursing Nursing Home in Ajijic.

Mexican entrepreneurs are doing their best to prepare for a flood of Americans. In the Baja Peninsula town of Ensenada, the Residencia Lourdes opened in 2003 to treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia. The towns around Lake Chapala at least five houses smaller pension. Most of them opened in the last five years and the house of one to 25 foreigners. Most importantly, Alicia convalescent Nursing Home, consists of four renovated houses, one of them specializing in stroke victims and another for Alzheimer’s patients. The price range of $ 1,000 to $ 1,500 per month and includes everything except medicine and adult diapers. The rooms are decorated in Mexican style, surrounded by murals, hand-carved beds, arched ceilings and brick terraces.

In other American enclaves, home health services have been created to serve the retirees. In Rosarito, just south of the U.S. border, provides nursing aides to retirees Incar from $ 8. 33 An hour less than half the cost for the same service close to San Diego.

Developers independent living facilities for seniors can also be seen at the beginning, Mexico. A Spanish-U. S. venture based Sensar Vallarta, a condominium complex of 250 units on Americans 50 and older are in the resort of Puerto Vallarta Pacific Coast. And in the northern city of Monterrey, El Legado markets itself as a docking station “for the elderly.

Scientists and government officials are beginning to take notice. In March, organized by the University of Texas at Austin to discuss a forum for developers, business managers of the hospital insurance, and politicians health care for retirees in Mexico.

“In the right equipment to give Mexico (possibly retired U.S.) a quality of life improved for a better price than they could find in the U.S.,” says Flavio Olivieri, a member of the Tijuana Economic Development Council, The search for federal funding opportunities to build more homes in Mexico, including Superior apartments . “We believe that this could be a very good case that these baby boomers retire,” he said.

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