HealthAbroad.net: Point of View

Organ trade represents the dark side of medical tourism and cut-price surgery. According to this article, a Colombia-based firm promises a healthy kidney or liver within 90 days at a South American hospital for about $100,000, which includes air transportation, meals, lodging and a round-the-clock interpretor.

Although it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to get a transplant overseas, officials at the United Network for Organ Sharing, the agency in the U.S. that manages organ allocation for the federal government, oppose the practice.

Officials at UNOS say transplant tourism is potentially exploitive because living organ donors might be paid and recipients might know little about the donor’s health. The agency last summer approved a resolution opposing the practice.

The Colombian government in 2004 enacted a law to make sure transplant centers exhaust all possibilities of offering available organs to Colombian natives before they are offered to foreigners.

U.S. patients are known to buy organs in countries such as India, Pakistan and China.

Approximately 45 million Americans lack medical insurance and the in his latest State of the Union address, George W. Bush promised healthcare reform to reach out to the uninsured and under-insured.

However, Uwe Reinhardt - Professor of Political Economy at Princeton’s University’s Woodrow Wilson School and an authority on healthcare economics, in an interview with the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) has said that universal health insurance coverage is feasable only if with an infusion of $100 billion a year and with the allocation increasing at about 7% to 8% per year.

…Reinhardt contends that the Bush administration’s proposed tax code reform - which would allow a standard deduction of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families who obtain health insurance on their own or through an employer - “still perpetuates an inequity that’s always been in that code — namely, that high-income people benefit more.”

The entire interview can be read here (with subscription only)

According to the HR Magazine, published by the Society for Human Resource Management, medical tourism could become an option in employer sponsored health plans. The article can only be accessed through subscription but the NY Times reports, that clearly the price of medical tourism appeals to employers who are faced with rising health care costs and operating costs.

According to examples cited in the article “Going the Distance for Health Savings,” the cost of sending a worker overseas for procedures like removing a gallbladder can be at least 50 percent less than that of having the work done in the United States, even if the employer pays for the worker to spend recovery time in a fine hotel.

Questions on quality of healthcare persist but to encourage employees to seek treatment abroad, companies are also willing to give them a percentage of what the savings.  

Useful article on how Singapore has built its reputation as the top destination for medical tourism.

Singapore Medicine, Singapore Tourism Board-Healthcare Services director Dr. Jason Yap, attests, “International patients come to Singapore for many reasons like heart and brain surgery, health screening and sometimes cancer treatment.” Why? “Because we assure them of world-class health-care system that focuses on safety and excellence,” Yap explains.

Already faced with an increasing number of patients flying abroad for medical treatment, the NHS now has a new problem. Even the nurses are leaving!!

The lack of support staff and finances is forcing many nurses from the UK to make a beeline for Australia. In the UK, one nurse is in-charge of 12-15 patients while in Australia the five patients to one nurse is strictly adhered to.

According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) 3,200 nurses of the 8,000 registering to work abroad want to work Down Under.

and more,

a leaked NHS report in January predicted a long term shortage of nurses with a shortfall of 14,000 expected in three years time.

The rise in medical tourism and the worldwide resurgence of spirituality and traditional healing has seen Ayurveda capture a significant piece of the medical tourism pie in India, CNN reports.

Ayurveda sessions, from a basic head massage to an intense detox scrub and wrap, that can last from 45 minutes to five-and-a-half hours and are priced at 950 rupees ($21) to 10,000 rupees.

Ayurveda products containing a combination of hearbs, spices, flowers and fruits such as saffron, basil and green apple generate a big chunk of the estimated $200 to $300 million alternative therapy market in India’s growing beauty industry.

As the West laps up Eastern philosophies and treatments, firms such as L’Oreal have also shown an interest in incorporating ayurvedic items in the product line.

Indian government authorities have extended the duration of the medical visa or M-VISA from 6 months to 3 years, if the patient’s doctor so wishes. On an MX-VISA, patients will be allowed to bring along a companion.

The Ministry of External Affairs has also directed Indian embassies in 18 countries to expedite paperwork for medical visas and for them to be cleared within 48 hours.

Indian embassies are known to be notoriously slow in processing visas causing much frustration among travelers.

Found a blog which posts first hand accounts of low cost surgery in India. Worth a visit.

Lap Band surgery is used to treat obesity. More on this here.  

After yesterday’s post on the prospects of an “international trade of doctors” driving down medicare prices in the US, comes an article on what would a visa-free world mean for the outsourcing industry in India and the client country. Good read.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw writes in his blog that a free flow of skilled people from countries like India to the US could impact income inequality in the two countries as well. Inequality in the US would reduce as the wages of the skilled fall in relation to the wages of the unskilled. “… from a US perspective, the economic pie grows larger, and the slices are divided more equally. More efficiency and more equality—a rare twofer,” says Mankiw.

And the very opposite will take place in India: Inequality will rise as the wages of the skilled rise faster than the wages of the unskilled. “Allowing more skilled workers into the US might exacerbate global inequality, even if it enhances global efficiency,” says Mankiw.

Posted in India, USA, Medical Tourism March 14th, 2007 by gaurav | No comments