In the last blog I wrote about putting together care teams at home that are essential to our comfort in reduced physical circumstances. Let’s begin this blog with the first of two relatively new services in San Miguel de Allende.
First and most important for those needing urgent care is the existence of high quality emergency response services here locally. As many of you know, Be Well San Miguel is associated with UNIMED Health Systems’ emergency medical clinic, and we believe there are more than a few good reasons for our endorsement.
UNIMED’s Emergency Room is the only facility in San Miguel de Allende staffed around the clock with board certified ER physicians. This group of MD’s is led by the highly regarded Medical Director, Dr. Emilio Ramirez, himself a board certified emergency physician with more than 20 years of experience in the field.
Emergency Medicine is an all encompassing, and, to an aging population, a critical medical specialty requiring its practitioners to have the skills and technology to manage acute crises across all medical disciplines. To adequately meet this challenge, the training and skills of an ER physician are much broader and deeper than for many other medical practitioners.
Some of the most critical situations that this specialty covers are stroke, cardiac arrest and heart attack. In addition, he or she must, in the shortest possible time, address GI bleeding, trauma (all varieties – car accidents, gunshots, stab wounds, fractures, skull fractures), uncontrolled hypertension, complications related to diabetes, respiratory failure, coma and shock. In each and every one of these critical situations TIME IS LIFE. There are very few situations where a critically ill or injured patient can wait until a particular physician arrives with the complete array of skills to manage a unique injury or trauma. It is important to note that many hospitals are equipped with an emergency room, but this does not mean the staffing physicians of that room have been peer reviewed and completely tested in both live and academic settings. In short, one is not the other.
The second relatively new service in San Miguel occurs at the other end of the care spectrum. San Miguel is fortunate to host a high quality assisted living facility in Casa Cieneguita. For many of us there will come a time when home care is no longer possible, whether due to frailty or the inability of the care provider to continue working in the home. This is where Casa Cieneguita’s contribution can be felt.
Casa Cieneguita is the evolution of a graceful residence, which has preserved many of its comfortable features, including beautiful gardens and grounds for visiting family and friends to relax in. Its kitchen is staffed by a nutritionist and cooks serving organic meals directly from its own gardens. With a capacity of 18 residents, the rooms are occupied as singles or doubles and the facility is just a short drive out of town. For those without transportation, they are located on a regularly operated bus line.
The ratio of care provider to resident is unusually high at 1 to 1.3. The medical director, Dra. Maria del Rocio Acosta Reyes is present at the facility every weekday from 10 AM to 5 PM, as well as being on call 24 hours per day after hours. Trained in geriatrics in Paris at the Faculté de Médicine Pierre et Marie Curie, she is a gerontologist with a special interest in holistic and integrative medicine. She speaks Spanish, English and French. UNIMED’s advanced life support ambulances respond to any medical emergencies that occur there.
Classes, group therapy, and exercise including aqua therapy are offered as a part of customary services and are included in the price for room and board. The owner and manager of Cieneguita is Mr. Pierre Lepoureau who has 48 years of experience managing hospitals and healthcare facilities. Their website is casacieneguita.com