MANITOBANS will have the chance to jump the wait list and pay for their own surgeries in India and Cuba thanks to a new medical tourist program starting this spring.
Choice Medical Services is set to launch in less than three months, and is intended to be a middle-class alternative to pricey procedures at the U.S. Mayo Clinic. For about $6,000, patients can pay out-of-pocket for a total hip replacement in Delhi, India, instead of waiting an average of 25 weeks in Manitoba or forking over upwards of $20,000 to have the surgery done in the U.S.
Daren Jorgenson
Local businessman and Internet pharmacy pioneer Daren Jorgenson has already inked agreements with Apollo Hospitals Group in India and the Cuban Ministry of Health in Havana to start sending patients through the program, which he said is a safe alternative for Manitobans frustrated with lengthy wait times in the health care system.
Jorgenson envisions Manitoba Health eventually using the system as a cheap way to outsource some of its surgeries.
"We should be entitled to every medical procedure that's out there, but the reality is it's going to be impossible," Jorgenson said. "There's going to be a point where government and society is going to say we can't afford this."
"It's just going to get worse and worse and worse."
The popularity of medical tourism in places like India has skyrocketed in the past few years, with thousands of Europeans and Americans paying for surgeries at a fraction of the price it would cost them at home.
Dr. Mark Taylor
Apollo Hospitals Group did more than 100,000 orthopedic surgeries for Europeans last year in its hospitals based in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
But Dr. Mark Taylor, past chair of Manitoba Medical Association's public health issues committee, said he doesn't understand why anyone would have major surgery or other procedures performed overseas.
Taylor said patients have no idea what qualifications foreign surgeons might have or the conditions they work under, and that there would be no opportunity for follow-up after an operation. He said the Canadian standards of medical care are excellent, and can't see the market for offshore surgery being viable in Manitoba.
Currently, the province will pay for medical procedures outside Canada only if patients have exhausted all other medical options available in the country.
Winston Maharaj, assistant deputy minister of health care workforce, said that's because the province is focused on reducing wait times in Manitoba and not sending patients across the world for medical care. He said reimbursing patients for surgeries in India or Cuba isn't even on the province's radar since wait times for both cardiac and orthopedic surgery have shrunk.
"I think we already have a number of initiatives underway to take the stress off the system," Maharaj said. "This would not be Manitoba Health's focus as far as addressing wait lists."
Despite the lack of provincial support, Jorgenson has consulted with several local surgeons and hopes to get government agencies and insurance companies to refer patients to the program. He said local physicians will have the option of staying involved with the patient's overseas surgery and can even watch it in real-time via an Internet webcast.
Jorgenson said he and local surgeons are inspecting the facilities and are guaranteeing safe care to Canadian patients.
Jorgenson and Dr. Ray Postuma, former head of pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital and medical director of Manitoba Telehealth, are heading to Havana the first week of March to verify surgical procedures are up to Canadian standards.
"I don't see where anybody loses," he said.
Provincial Conservative health critic Myrna Driedger said the very existence of such a program proves the province hasn't met their wait time targets. She said Manitoba is performing 4,500 fewer surgeries a year than in 1999 and that the province needs to do more to address the problem of wait times for elective surgeries.
"I'm not surprised to see something like this happen," she said. "Access to wait lists is not access to care."
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
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