Medical Tourism

Canadians who need medical care are going to India to beat the waiting lists for surgery, and perhaps enjoy themselves while they're at it. Sure sounds attractive when you read the Ontario waiting times...

When his doctor in Nova Scotia treated his chest pain with cholesterol pills and a wait-and-see attitude, Richard Johnson decided to get a second opinion — and ended up fast-tracked into surgery to open his blocked arteries.

To get it he came halfway around the world, to Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre in New Delhi, a high-tech private hospital directed by Dr. Naresh Trehan, a New York University-trained Indian cardiac surgeon Johnson found on the Web.

He was treated within hours after landing here last April. Total cost for a 10-day stay, including a side trip to the Taj Mahal in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes: $6,000 (U.S.)...

But Johnson is on the leading edge of a trend: "medical tourists" from Europe and North America who seem willing to overlook the poverty, teeming streets and decrepit airports of India if it means circumventing long wait times and high costs for health care.

For Canadians, who will have to pay out of pocket even for medically necessary care, speed is the crucial attraction...

As a bonus, patients may be treated with advanced techniques not routinely available back home. Ninety per cent of open-heart surgeries at the Apollo chain of 33 hospitals, for example, are done without shutting down the heart — easier on the patient but more challenging for the surgeon.

Foreign patients, who pay about 25 per cent more than Indians, can also opt for a vacation package deal with airport transfers, deluxe hospital room, mobile phone and sightseeing...

India's tourism and health ministries are pushing the concept. They set up a commission last year to oversee accreditation of hospitals and set prices in U.S. dollars, to avert both gouging and undercutting [talk about a public/private partnership!- MC]...

According to a provincial government website, 90 per cent of Ontario patients [see this link for the dirty little secret about waiting times - MC] needing hip replacements wait 336 days; knee replacements, 395 days; and cataract removal, 291 days. In India, a normal wait for surgery of any kind is zero to 10 days...

The Toronto Star, whose editors normally recoil in horror at any suggestion that people should be allowed to pay for medical care, does have its moments.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 19, 2006 12:03 AM