Seniors head south to Mexican nursing homes
By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY
AJIJIC, Mexico — After Jean Douglas turned 70,
she realized she couldn't take care of herself
anymore. Her knees were giving out, and winters
in Bandon, Ore., were getting harder to bear alone.
Douglas was shocked by the high cost and
impersonal care at assisted-living facilities
near her home. After searching the Internet for
other options, she joined a small but steadily
growing number of Americans who are moving across
the border to nursing homes in Mexico, where the
sun is bright and the living is cheap.
For $1,300 a month — a quarter of what an average
nursing home costs in Oregon — Douglas gets a
studio apartment, three meals a day, laundry and
cleaning service, and 24-hour care from an
attentive staff, many of whom speak English. She
wakes up every morning next to a glimmering
mountain lake, and the average annual high temperature is a toasty 79 degrees.
"It is paradise," says Douglas, 74. "If you need
help living or coping, this is the place to be. I
don't know that there is such a thing back (in
the USA), and certainly not for this amount of money."
As millions of baby boomers reach retirement age
and U.S. health care costs soar, Mexican nursing
home managers expect more American seniors to
head south in coming years. Mexico's proximity to
the USA, low labor costs and warm climate make it
attractive, although residents caution that
quality of care varies greatly in an industry
that is just getting off the ground here.
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, a University of Texas public
affairs professor who has studied the phenomenon.
There are no reliable data on how many are living
in nursing homes, but at least five such facilities are on Lake Chapala alone.
"You can barely afford to live in the United
States anymore," said Harry Kislevitz, 78, of New
York City. A stroke victim, he moved to a
convalescent home on the lake's shore two years
ago and credits the staff with helping him
recover his speech and ability to walk.
"Here you see the birds, you smell the air, and
it's delicious," Kislevitz said. "You feel like living."
Many expatriates are Americans or Europeans who
retired here years ago and are now becoming more
frail. Others are not quite ready for a nursing
home but are exploring options such as in-home
health care services, which can provide Mexican
nurses at a fraction of U.S. prices.
"As long as the economies of the United States
and Europe continue to be strong, we're going to
see people coming here to Latin America to pass
their final days," said Oscar Cano, manager of
Apoyo a los Miguelenses Ancianos, a non-profit
group that runs a nursing home in San Miguel de Allende.
Cozy cottage, meals, health care
Retirement homes are relatively new in Mexico,
where the aging usually live with family. There
is little government regulation. Some places have
suddenly gone bankrupt, forcing American
residents to move. Some Mexican homes have rough
edges, such as peeling paint or frayed sofas,
that would turn off many Americans.
"I don't think they're for everyone," said Thomas
Kessler, whose mother suffers from manic
depression and lives at a home in Ajijic. "But
basically, they've kept our family finances from falling off 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 cottage at the
Casa de Ancianos, surrounded by purple bougainvillea and pomegranate trees.
He has plenty of room for his two dogs and has a
little patio that he shares with three other
American residents. He gets 24-hour nursing care
and three meals a day, cooked in a homey kitchen
and served in a sun-washed dining room. His
cottage has a living room, bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom and a walk-in closet.
For this Slater pays $550 a month, less than
one-tenth of the going rate back home in Las
Vegas. For another $140 a year, he gets full
medical coverage from the Mexican government,
including all his medicine and insulin for diabetes.
"This would all cost me a fortune in the United
States," said Slater, a 65-year-old retired headwaiter.
On a recent afternoon, lunch at the Casa de
Ancianos consisted of vegetable soup, beet salad,
Spanish rice, baked dogfish stuffed with peppers,
garlic bread and a choice of four cakes and two
Jell-O salads. Slater's neighbor doesn't like
Mexican food, so a nursing home employee cooks
whatever she wants on a stove beside her bed.
Like many retirees, Slater has satellite
television, so he doesn't miss any American news
or programs. When he wants to see a movie or go
shopping downtown, the taxi ride is only $2-$3.
Guadalajara, a culturally rich city of 4 million people, is just 30 miles away.
For medical care, Slater relies on the Mexican
Social Security Institute, or IMSS, which runs
clinics and hospitals nationwide and allows
foreigners to enroll in its program even if they
never worked in Mexico or paid taxes to support
the system. He recently had gallbladder surgery
in an IMSS hospital in Guadalajara, and he paid nothing.
Many of the nursing home employees speak English, and so does Slater's doctor.
The Casa de Ancianos began taking in foreigners
in 2000 as part of an effort to raise extra
money, director Marlene Dunham said. It built the
cottages especially for the Americans and uses
the income received from them to subsidize the
costs of the 20 Mexican residents at the home.
The program was so successful that the nursing
home has plans for 12 more cottages, a swimming
pool, a Jacuzzi and a gazebo with picnic area.
The nursing home now advertises on the Internet
and through pamphlets distributed in town. 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 at smaller homes.
"It's the same danger you have of going across
the border looking for cheap medications," Minnix
said. "If you don't know what you're getting, and
you're not getting it from people you trust, then
you've got an accident waiting to happen."
'Nice place, but it's lonesome'
Since many nursing homes are run out of private
homes, regulation by state health departments is
often spotty. Managers such as Beverly Ward of
Casa Nostra and Maura Funes of El Paraiso, both
in Ajijic, said that Mexican officials inspect
them only once a year, unlike U.S. inspectors,
who may visit a home several times a year.
The U.S. Embassy said it had no record of
complaints against Mexican nursing homes, but
some residents in the Lake Chapala area reported
bad experiences at now-defunct homes.
The first home that Jean Douglas lived in after
she moved from Oregon was staffed by "gossips and
thieves," she said. It went out of business.
Irene Chiara of Los Angeles also lived in a home
that was shut down by Jalisco state authorities.
"It was filthy, and the food was very bad. It was
all made in the microwave," she said.
Some Mexican managers also underestimate the
costs and difficulty of running a retirement
home. Two hotels turned into assisted-living
facilities, The Spa in San Miguel de Allende and
The Melville in the Pacific Coast city of
Mazatlán, recently abandoned the business, their managers said.
"It was very expensive to run it," said Luis Terán, manager of The Melville.
Some managers said they were especially selective
when admitting foreign residents, to make sure
they'll be able to pay. Medicare, Medicaid, the
Department of Veterans Affairs and most U.S.
insurance companies will not cover care or
medicine as long as patients are outside the United States.
Some American residents said they had doubts
about the quality of Mexican medical facilities
and would go back to the United States if they
became seriously ill. Jim May, 74, a resident of
the Casa de Ancianos, said he recently decided to
move to Texas to be closer to Veterans Affairs hospitals.
The language barrier can be daunting, and Mexican
food can be very different, some residents said.
Some residents said they miss home and find it
hard to make friends with Mexican residents.
"It's a very nice place, but it's lonesome," said
Polly Coull, 99, of Seminole, Fla., a resident at
Alicia's Convalescent Nursing Home in Ajijic.
Mexican entrepreneurs are doing their best to prepare for a tide of Americans.
In the Baja Peninsula town of Ensenada, the
Residencia Lourdes opened in 2003, offering care
for patients with Alzheimer's disease and senile
dementia. The towns around Lake Chapala have at
least five small retirement homes. Most of them
opened in the last five years and house from one to 25 foreigners.
The largest, Alicia's Convalescent Nursing Home,
consists of four renovated homes, one of them
specializing in stroke victims and another for
Alzheimer's patients. Prices range from $1,000 to
$1,500 a month and include everything except
medicine and adult diapers. The rooms are
outfitted in Mexican style, with murals,
hand-carved beds, arched ceilings lined with brick and individual patios.
In other American enclaves, in-home nursing
services have sprung up to serve the retirees. In
Rosarito, just south of the U.S. border, INCARE
provides nursing aides to retirees starting at
$8.33 an hour, less than half the cost of the same service in nearby San Diego.
Developers look to Mexico
Developers of "independent living" facilities for
seniors are also beginning to look to Mexico. A
Spanish-U.S. venture is building Sensara
Vallarta, a 250-unit condominium complex aimed at
Americans 50 and older in the Pacific Coast
resort of Puerto Vallarta. And in the northern
city of Monterrey, El Legado is marketing itself
as a "home resort" for seniors.
Academics and government officials are beginning
to take notice. In March, the University of Texas
at Austin held a forum for developers, hospital
officials, insurance companies and policymakers
to discuss health care for retirees in Mexico.
"With the right facilities in place, Mexico could
give (American retirees) a better quality of life
at a better price than they could find in the
United States," says Flavio Olivieri, a member of
Tijuana's Economic Development Council, which is
seeking funding from Mexico's federal government
to build more retirement homes. "We think this
could be a very good business as these baby
boomers reach retirement age," he says.
Hawley is the Latin America correspondent for The
Arizona Republic and USA TODAY.bajajudy - 8-17-2007 at 10:24 AM
Al
I saw that article too.
To my knowledge there is no place here(BCS) for assisted living. We have been talking for years about moving my mother-in-law down here and I figured
to just get someone to be here with her all day. When she needs more than that, we would try to hire a nurse full time. The salaries in the article
seem realistic to me and cheaper than a home in the states.Pescador - 8-18-2007 at 07:24 AM
We have a really nice place in Santa Rosalia and I figure in about 10 years or maybe 20 I am going to go check it out.Cypress - 8-18-2007 at 12:11 PM
Based on some of the posts made by various Nomads, I'm wondering if maybe this is something they ought to consider ASAP.Marie-Rose - 8-18-2007 at 01:34 PM
VERY interesting!!! This is my line of work here in Canada.
Man would I love to be able to make this a business in BCS!
Heh Frizkie...what do you think???bajaguy - 8-18-2007 at 01:41 PM
Looks like a ripe plumb, ready to be picked.CaboRon - 8-21-2007 at 06:21 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by Marie-Rose
VERY interesting!!! This is my line of work here in Canada.
Man would I love to be able to make this a business in BCS!
Heh Frizkie...what do you think???
This is a perfect example of finding a need and then filling it...
PLease, go for it. There is and will be a growing need
