Chile Forum

RG1981 wrote:

patagoniax wrote:.But I have no complaints about Chilean clinics' willingness to quickly admit emergency patients. That is in sharp contrast to what is often seen in North America, where I once sat bleeding all over a table while trying to fill in the fooking forms.

Lies.

Typical North America news item:

A man who was in the same hospital waiting room as Brian Sinclair says he told nurses and security workers he was concerned about Sinclair -- but says he was told they were too busy to check on him.

Brian Sinclair, 45, died while waiting 34 hours for care at the Health Sciences Centre in what some are now calling the worst emergency room failure in Manitoba's history.

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other... and there are thousands of similar events to choose from

SAN ANTONIO -- A spokeswoman for University Hospital has confirmed a man who witnesses say waited close to 16 hours in the emergency room died Tuesday morning.

Alfred Garza, who said he spoke to the man while also awaiting treatment, said the man was in obvious pain and told him he had been waiting in the ER since 8:00 a.m. Monday.

Happens all the time.

Increasing Emergency Room Delays Pose Serious Danger, Study Finds


A new Harvard study shows patients are waiting in emergency rooms longer each year to receive treatment, particularly those who are most severely injured. The study analyzed the time between when patients arrived in the emergency room and when they were first seen by a doctor. The study found emergency delays affect all walks of life, regardless of race or insurance status.

Emergency Room Delays Increased For Most Seriously Injured

Perhaps most disturbing, the study shows that patients with the most severe injuries suffered the largest increase in emergency room waits. Between 1997 and 2004, the average wait time to see a doctor increased 36% for all emergency room patients (from 22 minutes to 30 minutes). However, for patients who were classified as needing immediate attention, the wait time increased 40% (from 10 minutes to 14 minutes). Worse still, the wait for heart attack patients increased by 150% (from 8 minutes to 20 minutes) with a quarter these patients waiting 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor. The “ever-lengthening waits are a frightening trend because any delays in care can make the difference between life an death for some patients,” says Linda Lawrence, President of the American College of Emergency Room Physicians.

ER Patients Are Not Profitable For Hospitals, Says Harvard Researcher

At the risk of returning an extremely interesting thread diversion back to its original point, today I collected my "products" from the bank and despite having to re-sign a truckload of documents, the whole process (today) was quite painless. I do have to wait a few more days for everything to be activated (for a reason I couldn't quite follow and gave up on trying to understand).

I'm feeling very Chilean right now...

RG1981 wrote:

patagoniax wrote:.But I have no complaints about Chilean clinics' willingness to quickly admit emergency patients. That is in sharp contrast to what is often seen in North America, where I once sat bleeding all over a table while trying to fill in the fooking forms.

Lies. I've gone to hospitals in Boston with mere strep throat and told them right up front that I didn't have insurance or anything like that and was admitted to see a doctor in a very timely manner. Once in Atlanta I took waaaay too much of a very strong medication by accident and got to the hospital and was again admitted with absolutely no red tape. Another time in Atlanta I had a severely injured leg and same thing. I was shown into the doctor's office with not a word spoken or question asked about payment until I was fixed and ready to leave.

How is it a lie when someone recounts a first hand experience?

An update to my Banco Itau experience...

After receiving my "products" from the bank at the end of June, I was now feeling very pleased with myself. Because I was off on holidays to Australia at the end of the following week, I didn't bother trying to transfer any funds from Australia to Chile, thinking that I'd do it when I got back.

OK, I've now returned, visited the bank again on the Monday morning and filled out the relevant bits of paperwork about converting transferred amounts from USD to CHP automatically such that CHP show up in my account. I was then advised to wait until Friday before making a transfer in order for them to get the paperwork processed and everything in order.

The process for this transfer, again perhaps only for afficionados of banking, is as follows;

- transfer from my bank in Oz to an intermediary bank in the US (in this case Wachovia Bank)
- Banco Itau Chile has an account with Wachovia Bank, for which I have the account name and the account number
- I am advised to use the Banco Itau Chile account name in the transfer paperwork, BUT to use my account number here in Chile, which is obviously different to the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank. When I ask about this, because it seems crazy, I am reassured that this is correct, but just to make sure, it is confirmed as correct with someone in Santiago HQ.
- Once Banco Wachovia receive the money, apparently they do some checking up to see whether I'm doing some money laundering, and once they are satisfied all is OK, then they will forward the money to Banco Itau Chile.

It is now one week since I pressed the "OK to transfer" button and still nothing in my account. I visited the bank this morning, and it was confirmed that nobody can find any evidence of the transfer in the Banco Itau system. Perhaps wait a bit longer was the helpful suggestion - try looking again this afternoon!

Despite the reassurances, I'm feeling a bit concerned about this, as (under instruction) I didn't use the Banco Itau Chile account number for Wachovia Bank. I have every suspicion that Wachovia Bank executives are scratching their balding scalps and wondering what account to stick this money into...

Let's see what this afternoon brings

Whenever I wired money to Itau in the past it routinely used to disappear for a week or two in transit -- a couple of times it was as long as a month or two -- but it always showed up eventually. In the meantime my branch would deny all knowledge. Also see admin's past comments about a money laundering committee in Chile that can hold up incoming transfers.

ryanar wrote:<snip>
- Banco Itau Chile has an account with Wachovia Bank, for which I have the account name and the account number
- I am advised to use the Banco Itau Chile account name in the transfer paperwork, BUT to use my account number here in Chile, which is obviously different to the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank. When I ask about this, because it seems crazy, I am reassured that this is correct, but just to make sure, it is confirmed as correct with someone in Santiago HQ.
<snip>

For me personally it doesn't sound correct.

First, the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank has to be put, with the "Banco Itau Chile" as the account name.

Next to it, your account number here in Chile (that you have with Banco Itau Chile) has to be put, with the "Your Name on Account" as the account name.

As I see it, they have to be used both, namely, the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank, plus, your account number here in Chile (that you have with Banco Itau Chile) -- this is done simply for the wire to be properly routed and processed.

I could be mistaken, though.

Speaking of incoming wires, has anyone any experience showing that CuentaRUT's de BancoEstado can [technically] accept international incoming wires, that should be of course less than the maximum account value stated in the "terms" (that is 3M CLP currently). The FAQ does not directly say "no" nor "yes", and here it goes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Preguntas Frecuentes

¿Cómo puedo recibir dinero desde el exterior hacia Chile a través de BancoEstado?

* El Ordenante (quien te envía el dinero) en el exterior debe solicitar a su banco la emisión de una Orden de Pago (Wire Transfer) para ser enviada a BancoEstado.

* Debe entregar los siguientes antecedentes:

+ Clave SWIFT BancoEstado: BECHCLRM, indicar cualquiera de las 314 Sucursales más conveniente para ti.
+ Además, debe entregar tus datos personales y bancarios:

** Nombre completo.
** N° de Cuenta (puede ser Cuenta Vista, Chequera Electrónica, Cuenta Corriente o Ahorro).
** Dirección: calle, número, ciudad.
** Teléfono: incluyendo código de ciudad.
** Moneda y monto que enviará.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It says, "puede ser Cuenta Vista", that is the type of the CuentaRUT by its definition, stated in the agreement.

araucaniax wrote:

ryanar wrote:<snip>
- Banco Itau Chile has an account with Wachovia Bank, for which I have the account name and the account number
- I am advised to use the Banco Itau Chile account name in the transfer paperwork, BUT to use my account number here in Chile, which is obviously different to the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank. When I ask about this, because it seems crazy, I am reassured that this is correct, but just to make sure, it is confirmed as correct with someone in Santiago HQ.
<snip>

For me personally it doesn't sound correct.

First, the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank has to be put, with the "Banco Itau Chile" as the account name.

Next to it, your account number here in Chile (that you have with Banco Itau Chile) has to be put, with the "Your Name on Account" as the account name.

As I see it, they have to be used both, namely, the account number that Banco Itau Chile has with Wachovia Bank, plus, your account number here in Chile (that you have with Banco Itau Chile) -- this is done simply for the wire to be properly routed and processed.

I could be mistaken, though.

I am inclined to think you are exactly correct araucaniax. I argued the point with them about needing to have the Itau account number on the form, but was assured (and they confirmed it internally) that no, it wasn't necessary. Very difficult to believe, as surely Wachovia Bank need to know which hole to put the money in. I'm sure they have no interest in what my account number is in Chile.

The next obvious question, once I get my first lot of money, is why I can't transfer directly to my account (i.e. why is an intermediary bank necessary when other banks do not use one).

I have done several transfers to Itau (in EUR) and below are the instructions I have used every time:

Intermediary Bank : DEUTSCHE BANK AG
Frankfurt - Germany
Swift Address : DEUTDEFF

Beneficiary Bank : BANCO ITAU CHILE
Santiago, Chile
Swift Address : ITAUCLRM
Account Number : xxxxxxxx (this would be Itau's account number with Deutshe)

Beneficiary Customer(Final beneficiary) :
Account Number : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Full Name : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Full Address : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone / Fax Nbr : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Remittance Information : Details of Payment

Details of Charges : OUR or BEN

Seems pretty clear to me what is necessary information.

Right, Magnyz. Two account numbers have to be present. So, the missing Account Number of the "Beneficiary Bank" in the "Intermediary Bank", even though "confirmed as correct with someone in Santiago HQ" -- this looks as a mistake (IMO).

Magnyz,

Yep, your form showing the info you submit, based presumably on the form you are presented with, looks pretty straightforward. Mine doesn't appear to have any place for "intermediate bank" information, so I'll have to have a look and see if it is hidden somewhere - thanks for the info!

In other "news", I got bored of waiting for my transfer to arrive, so I got my bank in Oz to initiate a "trace". Sure enough, the following day, I got a response from my bank saying that Banco Itau had refused to accept the transfer as there was insufficient information provided (FULL name and account number were apparently missing). I duly visited my local branch with this information, showed them the information I had submitted and demonstrated where my full name was written in the NAME field and the account number was written next to ACCOUNT NUMBER. After conceding that I had in fact provided all of the information needed, they promised to get cracking on it.

Later that afternoon, Wednesday, I got a call saying that it was all OK, and I'd have my money by Thursday afternoon.

Thursday evening, no dinero...

Visited the branch this morning to remonstrate and within 10 minutes, my account was finally credited.

In order to not repeat this fiasco, I asked what further information needed to be included next time. They have now suggested that I need to include the words "SINGLE CUSTOMER CREDIT TRANSFER" in the comments section. Apparently this will make everything better.

Teething problems...