With rising confidence in financial stability and the green shoots of economic recovery, Latvia, the centrefold of the three Baltic States appears to be a rising star. This week also revealed figures that there has been a sharp spike in tourism to Riga, the country’s engaging seaboard capital with its fine weather, eclectic mix of eateries and leisure pursuits.
 
Where Latvia does drag its feet is in healthcare. Latvia’s healthcare system was, until 2008, ranked the worst in Europe. According to the Euro Health Consumer Index it scored 449 points out of a possible 1,000. Waiting times are said to be ponderously slow and there are ‘significant shortcomings in the pharmacy sector.’

Latvia did score well on dental care and the vaccination of children, and low instances of diabetes compare well with much of the rest of the European Union.

We asked Michael McLaughlin, an Irish national resident in Latvia, what his experiences were: “Healthcare like much else is subjective. There is a penchant towards natural and traditional homeopathic care. This may be complementary to conventional drugs but the latter are not high on the Latvian healthcare agenda.”

The estate agent, whose southerncomfit.com specializes in property sales to non-Latvians, is sceptical about the HHCI Report. He says he has personally tested the Latvian healthcare system and can show clear evidence that it succeeded where both Spain and Britain failed. He says both hands-on care and prescriptions are cheap and they work.

“This was not just my experience,” he adds. “A very close friend of mine was treated in Spain, which failed her. She was flown to Latvia for treatment and has shown remarkable and consistent recovery.”

Latvia is a member state of the EU and is obliged to provide non-Latvians with the same standards of healthcare as its own citizens. The NHS qualifies its similar advice by advising that what is freely available in the UK may not be accessible in Latvia due to their different system and set of priorities. Non-Latvians will almost certainly be obliged to contribute to costs, which may be reimbursed by the NHS.

The advice is to insist on being treated by the state healthcare provider as Britons will not be covered for private healthcare. Visitors or indeed non-residents should be very careful of arrangements made by a ho