Here I am home again after two days in San Salvador. We decided to stay overnight in the capital for a couple doctor’s appointments, and also to look at some properties that we were thinking of purchasing. We have thought about purchasing a place as an investment, but one thing that people from the United States should be aware of about the real estate market, and El Salvador is that if you’re trying to get a loan from a Salvadoran lending institution, the term of the long will be based in part on your age. This was really surprising to me, but it actually makes some sense. From the lending perspective, banks here want to be sure you have paid off the loan by the time you reach retirement age. This is a very different scenario then what you would see in the United States. In any case we did not find any thing that we were interested in purchasing, but we had a relaxing evening.
At a doctor’s appointment today, there was someone in the waiting room speaking English, who was clearly an American. Our wait for the doctor was very long, on the order of 90 Minutes, so I went over to say hi, having not spoken with an American in-person in a couple weeks. He said he had been living in El Salvador since 2009 and that it was no longer as affordable as a previously was. However, I would say that it’s still less than in the U.S. for most things. For example, anything related to labor is really cheap in El Salvador when compared to labor costs in the U.S. Also, eating out is less expensive. Not only is the cost of food generally less here, but the tips are much lower here as well, being a standard 10 Percent. In addition, I mentioned that in the rural area that my wife and I live in, tips are set at 5%. Of course you can always give more, but that it’s not expected. Note that the tips are automatically included in your bill, regardless of party size. No one stands over you waiting to see what percent you’re going to give them. I acknowledge that some things are more expensive now, compared to what they were, such as real estate. Also, some imported items (like a new laptop), can have a lower cost in the U.S.
The medical situation in El Salvador is also interesting comparing it to the United States. El Salvador has a three tier medical system: (1) socialized, free, public medicine for all citizens, (2) a Social Security like system for vested workers, and (3) a boutique cash or credit card only medical system. When a relative visited in here with me once before we moved, she fell in a rural village and required emergency medical treatment. My wife’s nephew, who is a nurse, went into action and both treated her and coordinated her care with the local clinic. After he got her to the clinic in the village, they treated her, and I went to the administrative desk, and attempted to pay. They were confused, and my wife’s nephew came to me and explained that there was no charge.
They provided excellent care. A relative recently raised the question of what would’ve happened if it had been a stroke? I don’t know what level of care that rural clinic could have provided in that case, but I do know we were a 90 minute drive from the capital on bumpy rural roads. I don’t think any helicopter would have come to bring her to a hospital in such a case, as I have seen on I-95 in Maryland, when they shut down five or six lanes of traffic and airlift someone to a nearby hospital.
Maybe El Salvador doesn’t have the same resources as the U.S., but what they do have is doctors that take their time with their patients. I’ve seen several doctors here in El Salvador, since we arrived two weeks ago. I realize that these were initial visits, but in each case, the appointments lasted at least 45 minutes with undivided attention. It was only in one case that I had to wait more than 10 minutes for my appointment. And I considered it worthwhile once I got to see the doctor. The worker medical system here is a tier above the free medical system and my wife tells me it has some additional resources. Both the free system and the Social Security system are supposed to be available to citizens only. I could not avail myself of the free medical system for anything other than an emergency.