Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Wednesday October 18, 2017 IESS

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Wednesday October 18, 2017

Tuesday I convinced my IESS physiotherapist Geovanny to use cold packs instead of hot packs when doing the TENS machine and the results were almost immediate, I felt much better. I have been telling them all for months that cold works better than hot for my aggravated muscles.

Then I went to the pharmacist, decribed my condition and she gave 3 different drugs, just a few of each,.. 2 for at night and one for the morning. Again the results were almost immediate. Maybe we are finally on the right track again. I really don't want to go back to Gabapent or Lyrica which are largely ineffective.

After physio we went to Coral for groceries, overflowed the cart into a full drag-cart and the bill was $205. What worries me is that this will be our normal cost for 2 weeks worth of groceries...

Wednesday, I had an appointment to meet with lawyer Dra Lina Ulloa and I was joined by Mike & Lotis as well. The meeting lasted much longer than I expected but then there are so many complicating factors regarding the new law for IESS. Obviously we were silly to trust IESS to respect the Constitution and to not raise our rates. The legal advice, which I wish I had heard earlier, was to ignore the call to update information with the IESS office on the 5th floor. Now we have a huge fight on our hands to get our Constitutional rights. Then the biggest complicating factor is that the court is only in Quito. This means that last-minute transportation costs for a team of lawyers to go to Quito is going to make the fee to begin a court case prohibitive. This would scare off any potential expats on IESS to join in a lawsuit, especially if there is no guarantee of winning, and that the court would make the Government pay for our legal fees... I am still gathering a few people together who are affected and sent out a 7-page information sheet to all of them but I am frankly not very hopeful. Our best bet would be to work with a Quito lawyer who would take the chance on the Government paying the legal fees. I really don't see that happening, although they would get tremendous publicity from such a case.

One interesting and wakward situation is that permanent residents such as ourselves are to be treated the same as Ecuadorians, with no discrimination, that is a fact. But, expats paid into pensions in other countries. Ecuadorians paid into the IESS pension and medical most of their working lives and then collect their pension when they retire, and stop paying into the system.... even for the medical. That raises an interesting dilemma.... We don't mind paying a reasonable amount into the system but most of us are unlikely to last 10 years to get a puny pension, so the big issue for us is the medical. The Government is forcing us to have medical coverage but is also forcing us to pay basically the same rate as a working person, not the same as a retired person (zero). It is truly an unfortunate situation that has been forced upon us. But losing 30% of our Canadian pension to the exchange rate, then losing 21% for this medical coverage (while still paying for taxes, including medical, in Canada) sure puts a big hole in our pocket. We are just barely making ends meet.

Then after physio we went for a late afternoon appointment with Cristina's gynecologist, where we sat for an hour waiting... Yes, he is pretty certain there is a tumor and wants to operate but first Cristina has to get approval to see an oncologist. Then he took her blood pressure and I saw the shock on his face 3 times as he re-checked it. I am pretty sure that he said it was 190/60, way too high for any operation so he sent us to the Emergency room where we sat some more. They confirmed the blood pressure reading and sent us to the pharmacy for some pills to take to get the pressure back down. Then we sat for another hour to await taking another reading, which thankfully was lower. We were away from home for 5 hours so the dogs were very happy to see us return.

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day’s excitement.

Cheers, Al

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