Retiring in Panama with medical needs

Hello Anthony,

Welcome to Expat.com 😀

Thank you for such a detailed introduction and for sharing what matters most to you when choosing your next home. I hope members who know Panama well can help you with your questions, especially regarding private healthcare, access to medication, and the photography and music communities.

Have you already started looking at specific areas around Panama City, or are you still at the early research stage? It would be great to hear what you discover along the way.

Wishing you all the best with your research.

Cheryl

Expat.com team

@tonymels

Hi Anthony, We lived in Panama for four years and my views (sometimes disputed!) are shown above in posts Nos 17.19, and 27 above. My advice on moving to Panama would be, take care and don't be influenced (as we were) by first impressions. If you haven't picked up on some of the recent news, the US government announced yesterday that they are deploying some 900 troops to a base in Panama to act as a forward post for activities countering the drug trade from the region. Not a good sign.

Robert

Hello Cheryl

Thank you for your welcome and kind words.

My son is going to graduate next June when I will be putting my temporary property investment on the market spring 2027. It's in a perfect crime-free location where there is a famous salmon river 200 meters down a slope from my rear garden. Houses are deemed forever homes in this quiet cul de sac with a lovely caring local community, which is why such properties rarely come on the market.

Once sold I'll be free to move or at least visit Panama to get a realistic view to see if Panama is best suited for my remaining years, where country's health care and ease of medication supply is of paramount importance.

I guess the road infrastructure would determine the area to settle in, so I'll be deep diving into such avenues first if you pardon the pun. Having lived in extreme heat and humidity for 25 years, Panama's weather wouldn't be much of an issue where heat is good for keeping my blood thin.

My hobbies are mostly home bound with editing and music, so I would take advantage of the dry season to go on road trips to capture the differing environs on film and video. However, good internet and electricity would be of paramount importance, but a generator can solve the electric supply if it poses a problem.

If I make Panama my home, it will be my 8th country in 50 years, so I'm used to nomadic life, as well as being part of a like-minded community.

I guess it will be a time will tell for my last move.

Warm regards

Anthony

@Robert Hopkin

Hi Robert

Thanks for reaching out.

I read your posts with interest and appreciated all of your thoughts laid out. I would imagine your posts would have been and will be sound food for thought for people considering a move to Panama. The plethora YT videos tend to address the real positives, but not areas that could be very important to more discerning people who need certain requirements for their lives in a new country. I was 49 when I went to live in Thailand, which made life easier dealing with its third world living. However, the road infrastructure was good back then throughout the country, as were its airports and private medical services.

At 70, I need more home comforts than before, so the main points of your posts were more relevant to my current needs, where I'll certainly do my due diligence in such areas. It's easier for US expats, as their homes and families are generally not too far away. I've spent time on the road in the US with UK bands and also holidaying, such as driving up PCH1 from San Diego to Vancouver. A wonderful diverse country east to west with equally diverse friendly people depending where you go.

However, I'm not too familiar with US expats bar the ones I met in Thailand who tended to live in Pattaya and BKK, so not people I would tend to befriend, as a life around bar-beers were not for me. I was married for 20 years living in the north away from tourism and had a successful company with 128 Thai employees and was very much a home loving family man.

Originally, when moving back to the UK,I looked at southern Europe as a possible location to settle, but Brexit beat me to it, and now it seems the Spanish are not too happy to have Brits live there. I had a good friend from the UK offer advice on France who did property development there prior to Brexit where his comments were less than favorable, as I was seriously considering setting up a recording studio somewhere near the south of France. Wisdom Audio's MD is from Paris but lives in Holland... enough said.

I'm not disparaging France just that it would not be suitable for me: I have good friends who have friends happily living in France for many years, so horses for courses as it were. I spent 6 months in Paris in 1980 during my music business days and enjoyed my time immensely.

I did consider pitching my wagon in Laughlin on the Colorado river with sleepy Bull Head City; its neighbor. But the visa hoops you have to jump through put me off, as well as the political uncertainty that is going to take some years to resolve. It was a good location being on the Nevada/Arizona border with California not too far away.

It's a real dilemma where to settle in today's world, as you know well from your travels. Pre 2000 you could visit a country a few times where it was easier to take the first step in relocating there. Today it's vastly different where I'd want to rent for 6 to 12 months to really collect the data necessary to settle and buy a property. Again at 70, I don;t want to do that too many times.

AV rooms are not cheap to build. Being tax exempt for 12 months I shipped my Thai AV room's £250k tech to Scotland 2 years ago before the chest pains resurfaced, where I'd commenced joiners and a studio electrician running the 19 speaker's cables et al. The next owner of my home is going to have the only room of its kind in Scotland and where few exist in the UK. If the NHS was functioning properly, I'd happily stay where I am.

Back to your previous posts here, they have given me much to think about that requires much further investigation. Did you consider Uruguay? I feel Costa Rica and Belize are not for me, so Panama is the only option I'd consider in Central America.

Thailand would have been good for me to stay but ....... my 28 year old daughter has a BA is aerospace engineering and is currently in a Beijing university learning Chinese for 2 years. She wants to do her masters in Beijing and will stay in China to work in their aerospace industry after graduating. My ex wife is moving to the mountains in the north to live a quiet solo life, and my son will end up working on super yachts as a chef, as well as being a private chef to wealthy families globally.

No idea if I'll end up in Panama - only time will tell, and I hope you're enjoying life in your current location.

Warm regards

Anthony

Hello Anthony,

I will be brief as we shouldn't turn these posts into the Robert and Anthony show!

1. A point we haven't mentioned is the earthquake risk as Panama sits on three intersecting tectonic plates and the recent bad one hit 7.7 on the Richter scale and caused extensive damage in the Azuero peninsula.
2. My favourite area in Panama was the Pacific coast near Playa Santa Cara and El Farallon. Nice climate and beaches, close to the Interamaricana so you can be in the big city within an hour or so. Very popular with Canadian 'Snowbirds' for warm holidays flying into the nearby Scarlett Martinez local airport but with international traffic. The area must be good as most of the local dictators had their holiday homes there!
3. My greatest disappointment was Portobello on the Caribbean coast east of Colon. A very historic deep water port that, during the Spanish colonial period, handled one fifth of all the world's gold passing through and was the site of many battles between the English navy and the Spanish and the resting place of Sir Francis Drake who died there at sea. When we visited some three years ago - it was very run down, squalid, abandoned boats sunk in the harbour and raw sewage running in the streets. What a shame.

Hello Robert

Agreed about keeping it brief.

We saw the earthquake news which outlined the ring of fire regarding the plates.

Thanks for your other thoughts; I'll look into Playa Santa Cara and El Farallon areas, as location wise they sound close to my needs.

Many thanks

Anthony

Just seen this news item about the water situation in Panama. You might like to try this link.

https://1drv.ms/u/c/29f2ca3681d10598/IQ … E?e=OKWIbT

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve … re_btn_url

@Robert Hopkin

Colon has the potential to be a great tourist attraction if not for the people there who don’t care about keeping it clean and safe.

Thanks Robert. The more I research the more I understand why you left.

Hi Anthony, on your hospital question: the large private hospitals in Panama City have cardiac cath labs and interventional cardiologists, and David has private hospitals as well, which is a big reason retirees on the western side settle within reach of it. With eight daily medications, I'd bring the full list (generic names, not just brands) on your first visit and have a local pharmacist or cardiologist confirm each one or its equivalent is available. Brand names don't always match what you're used to.

The Santa Clara / Farallón area Robert mentioned is a good fit for 'an hour or so from the city', and renting 6 to 12 months before buying, like you're planning, is really the best way to test road access, power and internet for your studio setup. Panama City also has a fairly active arts and music scene, Casco Viejo especially, if you want like-minded people nearby.

Hello everyone,

Please note that this new thread has been created from your posts to benefit from better visibility.

All the best

Bhavna