Okay, then this IS appropriate:
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Posted on 01/31/2005 7:00:14 PM PST by Pikamax
This UK patient avoided the NHS list and flew to India for a heart bypass. Is health tourism the future?
Randeep Ramesh in Bangalore Tuesday February 1, 2005 The Guardian
Three months ago George Marshall fretted about the choice offered by his doctor in Britain. Diagnosed with coronary heart disease, the violin repairer from Bradford was told he could either wait up to six months for a heart bypass operation on the National Health Service or pay £19,000 to go under the scalpel immediately. In the end, Mr Marshall chose to outsource his operation to India. Last month he flew 5,000 miles to the southern Indian city of Bangalore where surgeons at the Wockhardt hospital and heart institute took a piece of vein from his arm to repair the thinning arteries of his heart. The cost was £4,800, including the flight.
"Everyone's been really great here. I have been in the NHS and gone private in Britain in the past, but I can say that the care and facilities in India are easily comparable," says Mr Marshall, sitting in hospital-blue pyjamas. "I'd have no problem coming again."
The 73-year-old found the hospital in Bangalore after a few hours surfing the internet. Mr Marshall decided to come after an email conversation with Wockhardt's vice-president and a chat with other "medical tourists" from Britain who had undergone surgery in the hospital.
"Once I knew others had come I thought, why not? In Europe hospitals in Germany and Belgium would do the operation for less than doctors in Britain. But Europe was still more expensive than here. And the staff speak English in India."
With patients such as Mr Marshall willing to travel across the globe to get treatment sooner or more cheaply than they could at home, Indian hospital groups see a huge market for their services.
A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and McKinsey consultants estimated "medical tourism" could be worth 100bn rupees (£1.21bn) by 2012. Last year some 150,000 foreigners visited India for treatment, with the number rising by 15% a year, says Zakariah Ahmed, an analyst who helped compile the report,
With a large pool of highly trained doctors and low treatment prices, healthcare aims to replicate the Indian software sector's success. Built on acres of land, often gifted to companies at peppercorn rents from Indian local authorities eager to promote business, the new, sleek medical centres of excellence offer developed world treatment at developing world prices.
A number of private hospitals also offer packages designed to attract wealthy foreign patients, with airport-to-hospital bed car service, in-room internet access and private chefs. Another trend is to combine surgery in India with a yoga holiday or trip to the Taj Mahal.
Many say that it is not just cost but competency that is India's selling point. Naresh Trehan, who earned $2m (£1.06m) a year as a heart surgeon in Manhattan but returned to start Escorts hospital group in India, said that his hospital in Delhi completed 4,200 heart operations last year.
"That is more than anyone else in the world. The death rate for coronary bypass patients at Escorts is 0.8% and the infection rate is 0.3%. This is well below the first-world averages of 1.2% for the death rate and 1% for infections," says Dr Trehan. "Nobody questions the capability of an Indian doctor, because there isn't a big hospital in the United States or Britain where there isn't an Indian doctor working."
Most foreign patients who come to the subcontinent are from other developing countries in Africa, south-east Asia and the Middle East where western-trained doctors and western-quality hospitals are either hard to find or prohibitively expensive.
Hospital administrators accept that many prospective patients from the west are put off because images of India tend to focus on poverty and on the less than hygienic living conditions of most people.
Mr Marshall had never visited the subcontinent before and only been out of Britain twice before, to Australia and Egypt, on holiday. He readily admits that he did not tell his daughter what he was planning to do until two days before coming, for fear of her "reaction".
What little Mr Marshall knew about the country was not favourable and at first he was shocked by the organised chaos of India. "There are so many people here. When I was in the car coming from the airport we got stuck in really heavy traffic. It was hot, there were horns going off and people shouting. I thought, 'Oh hell, I've made a mistake.'"
But once in his airconditioned room, with cable television and a personalised nursing service, the 73-year-old says that his stay has been "pretty relaxing. I go for a walk in the morning when it is cool but really I don't have to deal with what's outside".
How many patients will come from Britain ultimately will depend on the NHS, which has begun sending patients for treatment to Europe to cope with its backlog of cases. At present the NHS restricts referrals to hospitals within three hours' flying time - but Indian hospitals say this barrier will eventually be lifted.
"It is inevitable. In the west you have rising healthcare costs and an ageing population," says Habil Khoraiwallah, chairman of Wockhardt, who plans to open five hospitals in India next year, including a new 350-bed hospital in Bangalore. "People are already discovering the benefits themselves. Governments will follow."
But campaigners say while the private medical industry is getting tax breaks and other incentives, the public healthcare system in India is falling apart. The country has less than one hospital bed per 1,000 people, compared with more than seven in first world countries. There are just four doctors in India for every 10,000 people, compared with 18 in Britain.
"The poor in India have no access to healthcare because it is either too expensive or not available. We have doctors but they are busy treating the rich in India," says Ravi Duggal, a researcher at Cehat, a health thinktank based in Mumbai. "Now we have another trend. For years we have been providing doctors to the western world. Now they are coming back and serving foreign patients at home."
What treatment costs
Heart bypass UK: £15,000 France: £13,000 US: £13,250 India: £4,300
Hip replacement UK: £9,000 France: £7,600 US: £15,900 India: £3,180
Cataract operation UK: £2,900 France: £1,000 US: £2,120 India: £660
But this can't be right! It's supposed to be FREE healthcare!
That's the way all of Canada has become. Healthcare is a right to all people, not those fortunate enough to have the cash to pay for it. Socialism has made all doctors government workers and all medical facilities government property. It is against the law for a doctor to treat anyone outside of something covered by the system. The best doctors immigrate to the U.S. to avoid Big Brother and earn salaries proportionate to their credentials and capabailities.
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.....
" All the efficiency of the Postal System and the compassion of the IRS !"
ROFLMAO!!!
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." -- P. J. O'Rourke, HERE
Okay, then this IS appropriate:
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Hospitals on the US border with Canada are full of sick Canadians getting their procedures done before they die waiting on lists in Oh Canada.
That's Canada and its "free" medical care.
From what little I know "health tourism" began as cosmetic surgery options in Cuba and carribean locations but has now gotten much, much bigger and more fundamental. I remember reading about a similar arrangement in Thailand recently for major surgeries. If you check the numbers it is cheaper than here even including the whole travel and hotel package. I would not be surprised if more and more americans take up this option. Its all a matter of word of mouth so people learn that one can get good quality in some of these places with no insurance and other paperwork & red tape, etc. I even recall reading of a canadian venture proposing to set up shop on an indian reservation, out of reach of the canadian NHS. This could presumably be done here as well. It would be heaven for a doctor to be able to work on a cash basis with no HMO's, Medicaid, malpractice B.S. etc. A hell of a lot cheaper too, no doubt. Just keep in mind there are no options for suing for malpractice in a foreign location.
India was best known for poverty and its beggars as long as the Nehruvian-Stalinists held sway. In the past 10 years, it has freed up its markets and now India is known for outsourcing, its physicians and computer programmers.
With the return of the Nehru family in alliance with Communists, things may once again deteriorate.
Considering India's ancient history as a center of skilled medicine and doctors, this comes as no surprise.
India's Industrialization and exponential growth in the number of doctors might revolutionize global medical technology.
The process of economic reforms began under one member of the Gandhi clan-Rajiv & was continued by PVN.The state of WestBengal attracts among the largest amounts of FDI into India.In short,the process of economic liberalisation will not stop or slow down-it's no longer a question of choice for India's politicians(barring ones in the cowbelt),but one of necessity.
Gujarat is far more Industrialized than Commi run states like West Bengal, which is overrun by Islamic terrorists from Bangladesh.
& what have I said to contradict that?
"The state of WestBengal attracts among the largest amounts of FDI into India"
You exaggerated West Bengal's Importance.
Isn't "Cowbelt" a word used Disparagingly against hindus ?
I didn't overestimate or underestimate WB.That's how you would like to see it.Their economic & industrial situation has been a mess for close to 15 years due to the Comrades handling stuff.The current chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is a tough reformer who has invited foreign collaboration in a number of ventures,closed down loss making PSUs & even banned strikes in the IT sector(I don't think any country has such a law).He has also shown concern about the increasing number of Bangladeshi infiltrators & has used his police to do their bit,while the Indian government is completing it's border fence(with which Dhaka is not exactly happy).I am only stating the facts & unlike some people,I don't see things through jaundiced eyes.
About Cowbelt,I think I have figured out the politico-ideological leanings of a few folks here.Cowbelt is a term used by sociologists & political economists to refer to the states of Bihar,Uttar Pradesh,Rajasthan & Madhya Pradesh(you can add Jharkand & Chattisgarh to it).These states have the lowest social & economic(industrial) indicators in India.The economy is still rural oriented or associated with the cow & agriculture hence the name. & before you bring Hindus & Mormons into it,The cowbelt has a pretty big chunk of Muslims as well,who are competing with their Hindu neighbours in the "Im more backward competition".
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