Costa Rican health care

I{ve had several conversations with people about health care, but this is my first need for an enounter: a sore throat that feels a bit like broken glass when I swallow, and a low fever last night, and exposure to a coughing baby a week ago, and Karolina having a cough, which all makes me think I might be on track to a throat infection, which scares me because I{ve had a very bad, painful one with a high fever and I don{t want that to happen on the road.

So I check my Lonely Planet and see that pharmacists in Costa Rica, as in England, can prescribe medications so I don{t need to make a doctor{s appointment and pay a bajillion dollars and-or wait all day, I can just go to one of the 20 different pharmacies in town and get antibiotics.

So I ride my bike down the very far and very dangerous highway about 7 blocks (seriously, everywhere is muy largo from here to a Costa Rican) to the first pharmacy I see, and tell the very pretty young pharmacist that I{ve got a sore throat that feels like broken glass and I think it might be an infection and I{d like antibiotics.

And she, in her gentle, smiling, respectful way, listens and then tells me that my symptoms don{t, in her opinion, merit antibiotics but that she{ll give me two other things instead: to knock out the infection, 4 tablets of something called Etoricoxib, which I{ve never heard of, to take once a day. And then a dozen throat lozenges to suck on every 4 hours, also to help knock out the infection, called Decatileno, which I{ve also never heard of.

I{m a little nervous but she{s so NICE and so CERTAIN that these will work, that I pay my $4 and cross that errand off my list.

Background: From what I can see, Costa Rica has a system in which the government acts to ensure that everyone can get health care, everybody pays something into the health care system through employment taxes when they{re working, and there seem to be plenty of private medical practices. Everyone I{ve talked to says yes, everyone in CR can get health care if they need it, and they all seem proud and happy to be able to say that.