Why Medical Tourism Is on the Rise in Mexico

Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange visits American ex-pat Chantal at the Mariposa Wellness health clinic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She’s been there for thirty years after having been a Haight-Ashbury Flower Child for just as long and says she doesn’t regret her partying years because it brought her to where she is today. Hers is one of many clinics involved in the boom of medical tourism in Mexico, due to the breakdown of healthcare in the US.

Many treatments that are illegal in the US are legal in Mexico, Europe, South America and Asia. Treatments that are legal in the US, which are hideously expensive, like kidney dialysis or stem cell therapies are available for a fraction of the cost in Mexico. Furthermore, she believes that the level of care may be superior because the doctors spend more time listening to their patients and they pay attention to their patients’ diets.

In addition to chelation, acupuncture, ozone and stem cell therapies, her clinic offers ibogaine to treat addictions. She says that ibogaine has the effect of “closing” the dopamine receptor sites, virtually curing heroin addiction “overnight”. Alternately, she says microdosing ibogaine can ease depression.

She describes ozone therapy as the “crown jewel” of the offered treatments because she says it helps with everything, as oxygenation is fundamental to basic health.

Mexico also has herbal medicine traditions that are thousands of years old and are as alive as ever and if you want to get prescriptions for opiates, good luck, because they’re barely manufactured at all in Mexico and there is no opioid epidemic.