I brought my mother Susan to Holistic Bio Spa for alternative cancer treatment in February of this year. My mother was diagnosed with terminal Kidney cancer, renal cell carcinoma in November of 2021.The diagnosis and the illness came completely out of the blue for my previously very healthy, active and vibrant 65 year old mother. Western Medicine offered only chemotherapy to prolong life not to cure. We believe the bodies ability to heal therefore I searched high and low for an alternative clinic that could offer her treatment.
I chose Holistic Bio Spa in Puerto Vallarta and I am going to be as fair as possible in writing this review. The treatment protocol for my mother offered to us by Holistic Bio Spa for three months was $100,000 Australian dollars investment for our family. In addition to this we had to pay for accommodation, flights and living costs while in Mexico.
Holistic Bio Spa made a lot of promises about helping us to arrive from Australia to Mexico to begin treatment, however as a very well traveled and very capable woman I knew in advance to not leave such things as travel arrangements, accommodation and preparations in the hands of strangers. I took care of all those things myself and we arrived smoothly in Mexico.
The same cannot be said for many of the other patients I spoke to over the course of the 4 and a half months I was in Mexico that left the arrangements up to Holistic Bio Spa. They were made many promises that were not delivered and as a result ending up investing far more on accommodation and treatments than they should have.
I did speak with Holistic Bio Spa about the risks of traveling to the other side of the world with a terminal ill woman and what that could involve however the clinic assured me that should things go wrong they would be with us every step of the way.
I was unable to get medical insurance for my mother as she was diagnosed with a terminal illness no one would insure her and Holistic Bio Spa were made aware of this. We admit that we knew the risks and we went to Mexico knowing those risks and as a family we take full responsibility for this.
The treatment started off really well and I had the utmost faith and trust in her treating doctor Dr Bars, I stand by that trust and faith to this day. Dr Bars is a total genius who is by far the most intelligent doctor I have ever met and will likely ever meet. Dr Bars could read blood work and design protocol like no other man on this earth.
The first three months were up and down and hard going because the treatments made my mum sick and tired. The amazing thing was her body was killing cancer and killing it at a rapid rate. She was losing a lot of weight from the medication however she was stable.
I want to be clear that while at the clinic my mother received nothing but care from her treating nurses and doctors.
The last onca trace that we had done ( test that shows how many circulating cancer cells a person has) was outstanding, the treatment was working and my mum was recovering. As a family we made the decision to extend the three month treatment plan when it ended for another 5 weeks.
At this time my mothers treating doctor Dr Bars went on holiday to Brazil and this is when things went down hill and they went down hill fast.
A few days after Dr Bars left my mother started acting very strangely and her feet and limbs swelled up. Holistic Bio Spa did a urinary analysis on Monday and it would take them until Friday before Carlos from head management would summon us to his office.
Carlos coldly informed us that my mother had come down with a bladder infection and that they could not treat her and that we were required to take her to hospital. Her treatment at Holistic Bio Spa was terminated immediately and they sent us out to fend for ourselves against a pack of wolves.
Holistic Bio Spa is an outpatient facility and we were well aware of that, we resect that Bio Spa could not treat the bladder infection however they way they handled my mum needing to go to hospital was disgusting.
My mums red blood cell count had dropped to fatally low levels and she required an urgent blood transfusion and IV antibiotics. In Mexico it is different to other countries in the fact that when you require a blood transfusion you have to find the blood yourself.
Holistic Bio Spa offered us zero support. They wrote a discharge letter for my mother and sent her on her way. We were left to navigate a foreign hospital system in a foreign language with absolutely no support.
Does this sound like we are your family and support network on the ground.
In Mexico you have to pay upfront for the hospital. My sister asked Carlos for a refund on the amount that was left owing to us since my mums treatment had been terminated and he said oh we will wait and see. They did not refund us the money when we needed it therefore as a result of this I had to urgently find another $17,000 Australian Dollars in an attempt to save my mothers life in addition to pounding the pavement looking for A+ Blood.
We know for a fact that Holistic Bio Spa have a list of blood donors that they could have called on as two doctors on staff told us that they did however we were not offered any of this support.
My mother spent 4 days in La Joya Hospital in Puerto Vallarta where she received three blood transfusions and IV antibiotics. The bill for a four day stay was $17,000 in addition to the $100,000 we had invested at Holistic Bio Spa.
We were out of money and we left the hospital where my mother continued to rapidly decline, during this time we were paying for a doctor to come to our home and care for her. From the moment Carlos terminated my mothers treatment Holistic Bio Spa did not reach out to us to check on my mothers well being.
As a family we had invested $100,000 in treatment. We chose Holistic Bio Spa as they sold themselves as a treatment clinic that is our family on the ground offering an alternative to Big Pharma.
What a bunch of lies this turned out to be. Holistic Bio spa turned out to be exactly the same as Big Pharma, when it came down to it all they cared about was lining their pockets with the money of vulnerable people.
My mother passed away on June 14th and not one single staff member from Holistic Bio Spa apart from my mothers treating doctor Dr Bars reached out to us to offer their condolences.
I would later find out that when Dr Bars returned from his holiday in Brazil he left the clinic effective immediately to start his own practice.
Of course my mother passing away is a tragedy however I reiterate that we knew the risks and we do not hold Holistic Bio Spa responsible for her death. We hold Holistic Bio Spa responsible for a complete lack of compassion, empathy and support which is the opposite of what they sold to us. After my mother passed away they did refund the remaining money left owing to us which was $7000 Australian Dollars however by then it was too late.
Even with the death of my mother this could have ended very differently. If Holistic Bio Spa had shown compassion and support on the ground, if they had helped us to navigate the hospital system, if they had taken 30 seconds to send us a text message every day to enquire on her well being I would be leaving a very different review.
With this being said I am completely changed by the power of regenerative medicine and as a family we have no regrets that we tried. If you find yourself in the position of wishing to seek alternative treatment for advanced cancer I would seek out Dr Bars.
Read more Read less