The following report was submitted to the Marshall Islands Chamber of Commerce by Jack Niedenthal, who traveled to the Philippines in February of 2006, and then again in March of 2009, for the "Executive Checkup" at St. Luke's Medical Center in Manila.
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St. Luke’s Medical Center is a 650-bed facility located at 279 E. Rodriguez Sr. Boulevard in the Cathedral Heights section of Quezon City in Metro Manila (the National Capitol Region or NCR), Philippines. Telephone numbers connecting all departments: |
St. Luke's Medical Center's "Executive Checkup"
Manila, Philippines
Arrangements from Majuro:
Medical:
Call 625-7759, which is the RMI Medical Referral Office. After the initial call all the arrangements were quickly made for both my wife and I.
Flights:
Flights leave every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from the RMI all the way to Manila with a change of planes in Guam. It only takes 25,000 miles on One Pass for a roundtrip ticket to Manila from Majuro. You leave about 10 AM from Majuro and Arrive in Manila just after 9 PM. There is a 4 hour time difference between Majuro and Manila [it is earlier in Manila], so it is a very long day on the plane. After arriving in Guam at about 5:30 PM, there is about a 2 hour layover.
Arrival in the Philippines:
Upon arrival in Manila at about 9:30 PM you need to clear customs and immigration, which is a simple, painless process in Manila. Once through customs, we were met by the representative from JMI Insurance, the company handling RMI referrals. I exchanged money near where the van was scheduled to pick us up, about 47 pesos to a dollar. We then rode in a van for about one hour to the hotel. There was no charge for this service. We immediately checked into the hospital.
Hotel:
After our discharge from the hospital (2 nights and 3 days), we got checked in very quickly at the Garden Heights Condotel. I would describe the rooms there as adequate, but for $40 a night, who can complain. There is cable TV, air-con, and cooking facilities in each room. Also, if your room is toward the front of the building on the side facing St. Luke's Hospital, you can pick up the SLMC wireless internet system. The hotel is about a 5 minute walk from St. Luke's. There are 2 internet cafés beside the lobby on the ground floor, both charge 25 pesos [50 cents] for an hour, and are open from 8:30 AM to 10 PM daily. After about 9:30 AM, it gets crowded with high school kids who play computer games, so the earlier you get there the better. Beware if you have the hotel wash your clothes: for a small bag of laundry during our forst visit in 2006 we were charged 1,000 pesos, or about $20. I wrongly assumed because everything else was so cheap, so would having the hotel do my laundry. I later learned that there are two laundries located beside the hotel where they do laundry very inexpensively.
The Medical Center:
Checking in was quick at with Wellness Center of St. Luke's. We had to fill out the standard medical forms and register, etc. We were taken to our suite on the 4th floor. The room includes 2 beds, 2 couches, a large soft chair, a TV, a VCR, and a computer that allows you to have free internet access. St. Luke's now also has free wireless internet in the rooms (named SLMC), so I used this system for my entire stay. The room also has a microwave, a telephone, a fax machine, and plenty of closet space. The bathroom is a bit small, but adequate. Patients should bring their own vanity supplies like razors, shampoo, etc. If you forget to bring those items, there is a coffee shop in the lobby that is open 24 hours and sells various supplies, even munchies. It also helps if you bring your cell phone. You can just buy a sim card in the Philippines, then replace the one from the RMI in your phone. I bought a sim card that came with 500 pesos [$10] worth of calls. Even though I used this phone every day, the total charge to the card was only 250 pesos by the time we left, so I used about half of it. Having a cell phone helps communicate with the staff of Medpharm and the taxi drivers we hired to take us shopping, etc. Upon landing, the pilot announced that Manila is “the text messaging capital of the world.” He was right: people rarely called us, they just text messaged us whenever they needed to let us know something.
Use only Globe or Smart GSM sim cards (can be purchased for about 50-80 pesos or about US$1.00+). Do not use the SUN cell GSM sim card, the service is awful.
St. Luke's Medical Center Fourth Floor Rooms:
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Each bed has a call button in case you need anything from the nursing station. |
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Each room has couches, a fax machine, a telephone and a computer that has internet access. |
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There is plenty of closet space and a cable TV. |
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The bathrooms are small but adequate. |
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Each room has a microwave, a coffee maker, and a refrigerator. |
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Shown is the typical breakfast, the meal at the bottom is vegetarian. |
The Executive Checkup.
Day 1:
After checking into the room we were visited by several doctors all of whom went over the schedule with us. They asked is we had any particular medical issues or complaints, if we had any allergies to food or medicines, etc. On day 1 they took a stool sample, a urine sample, they did chest x-rays, an ECG, and they did an ultrasound of the prostate. About 7 PM they gave us a small bottle of orange-flavored castor oil followed 30 minutes later by a larger, cold bottle of orange-flavored magnesium citrate for a chaser as laxatives. You are warned not to eat anything after 8 PM.
The meals are adequate. Breakfast is served early in the morning, lunch at about 11:30 AM, and dinner at about 6:30 PM. They easily accommodate special requests for vegetarians, etc. As mentioned earlier, there is a small café just inside the hotel lobby that is open 24 hours and has a lot of vanity supplies, snacks, and two restaurants.
Day 2:
The nurse woke us up and gave us a "cleansing enema." The enema was needed so that they could perform ultrasounds of our internal organs. There is very little waiting time for any procedure. I think the most we ever waited for anything was maybe 15 minutes. After the ultrasounds we did our lab work. The nurses came to the room and took blood. After breakfast, we went to get our proctoscopy done. They tell you on the spot how your colon is doing. After lunch we drank barium in order for them to x-ray our upper body organs. In the afternoon we did the stress test, which involves walking for 15 minutes at progressively faster speeds on a treadmill. We also did the lung tests in the pulmonary ward. At the end of Day 2 make sure you drink large amounts of water to clear the barium from your system, this will cut down on the number of cleansing enemas you will need the next morning. Trust me, you want as few of those as possible!
At the end of day 2 we drank the same small bottle of orange-flavored castor oil followed by the larger cold bottle of orange-flavored magnesium citrate for a chaser as laxatives, and again had to fast.
Day 3:
They save the best for last. The day begins with a full-blown series of cleansing enemas with soapy water. This is performed numerous times to make sure your intestines are totally empty. Then they took us down to perform the barium enema, one of the most excruciating medical procedures I have ever been through. This procedure lasts for about 30 minutes.
Overall, the doctors and nurses were very professional, and just as important, very courteous, indeed, exceptionally courteous, and very attentive to our needs. They check on you and take your blood pressure several times a day. All the procedures are explained very carefully and in great detail. The hospital is old but very clean and has for the most part state of the art equipment.
The afternoon of the third day is spent waiting for the preliminary results.
On our final day in the Philippines, we met with our chief doctor to discuss all the results of the many tests that were performed. They gave us a folder with all the results neatly organized for us to take along.
Miscellaneous:
We spent a lot of time watching HBO, CNN and the TV show about a hospital emergency room, ER, on the Star channel [which was a bit surreal. They would broadcast 4 straight hours of this program, Monday through Friday]. Not much else to do when you sit around the hospital room. Bring plenty of reading material.
There are plenty of places to eat near the hotel, including the Pancake House (free wireless), Starbucks, Burger King (free wireless), Shakey's (free wireless), and Pizza Hut if you want to eat Western. Also, in the Philippines they use 220 volt power [Majuro uses 110 volt], but with the American style plugs. Most laptops and cell phone adapters come with 100-240 volt capability, so you don't really need a transformer unless you have an appliance that carries only a 110 volt rating. If you need something like that, go to the Walter Mart [the Philippines version of Walmart], which is located just down the hill from the hotel.
Shopping: I much preferred going to the SM Mall, where prices are marked just like any store in the US. Green Hills Mall is a place where you haggle for price and you don't always get the best deal. The taxi ride from Garden Heights Hotel to the SM Mall was about 60 pesos (a little over $1.00). The is a North SM Mall, and a South SM Mall, but the one to the north is bigger, I believe, anyway, that is the one I prefer.
Eat as many mangoes as you can because they will never taste better than in the Philippines. There is a great fruit stand right at the bottom of the driveway going into St. Lukes Hospital. You can get a whole fresh watermelon for 80 pesos (about $1.50).
Just outside the Garden Heights Hotel, to your right when you get to the busy street, is Garcia's Market. Also, if you go left down at the bottom of the hill from Garden Heights,on the far side of the street is Walter Mart, a little shopping mall that also has a big grocery store inside.
DO NOT TAKE TRAVELERS CHECKS as they are almost impossible to cash, use either cash or the ATM machines (St. Lukes has one right out in front of the hospital).
If anyone plans on going, I can give you hints about where to shop and who can help you guide you through this process. If you have any questions about my experiences, email: bikinijack@gmail.com
Departure: We were driven by JMI Insurance right to the airport without charge. You need 750 pesos for the departure tax. The airport has a few snack bars, but nothing great, so you might want to bring some food along for the flight to Guam and then onward to Majuro. There are two flights to Guam each day from Manila, one that leaves at 11 AM, which gets you into Guam at about 4 PM, which means you have to overnight in Guam, then catch the island hopper at 8 AM to Majuro. A second flight leaves Manila at 11 PM, which gets you into Guam at 4 AM, just about in time to check in for the island hopper to Majuro, so that way you can skip the hotel in Guam but you basically wind up flying straight through from Manila to Majuro, and that is a LONG series of flights.
-Jack Niedenthal, March 30, 2009
bikinijack@gmail.com