Thanks to US Health Care & Canada's Health Care Policies Medical Tourism in Asia Finds More Takers Than Ever!

About Health Care: Canadian citizens seem to be at a disadvantage given the rules their health service departments have formulated. Like their American counterparts, Canadian patients face a horde of issues concerned with getting the right medical care owing to lengthy waiting periods, increasing costs and difficulty obtaining ‘non standard treatments’.

Maryann Ayim Tells It All: The plight of Canadians is made evident by an account of medical tourism written by Maryann Ayim following denial to health care services in Alberta, Canada. Ayim, aged 61who made her foray into mountaineering at the age of 55 was diagnosed with osteoarthritis and joint deterioration especially in the left hip. Despite being otherwise healthy, she was pronounced too old to undergo a hip resurfacing surgery as per health care laws in Alberta and was advised a total hip replacement.

There was little information available to her to explain why she was rejected save for her age which didn’t seem to be the limiting factor in such a surgery because having led an active life over the last five years, her bone density was perfect and her muscles could take more strain than most other women’s. However, the law without exceptions barred her from receiving the treatment she desired.

The Indian Way: “It is my great good fortune to have a physiotherapist whose climbing partner had travelled to Apollo Specialty Hospital in Chennai, India for a hip resurfacing procedure with the surgeon, Dr. Bose. Sarah recommended that I think about this option”, she recounts.

Ayim was aware of superiority of hip resurfacing over hip replacement and jumped at the prospect, initiating correspondence with Dr. Bose by e-mail.

In late 2007, she made the trip to India for her surgery in Chennai. While she had her own reservations about getting operated upon in a country where millions die from lack of medical care and poverty is a reality, her doubts were laid to rest when she was escorted to her private room in the Apollo Speciality Hospital. She received a quality of medical attention and hospitality which Canadians could only dream of and which were denied to her by Alberta Health Services on shady grounds.

Ayim was back to indulge her mountaineering fetish within 5 months of her surgery. The return could’ve been sooner had it not been for the extreme winter in Canada.
Maryann proudly beams as she tells us, “in a one month period less than a year post-surgery, I did a total of 13,896 meters vertical ascent which included ten significant mountain summits and a 90 km four day backpack over four mountain passes in the Columbia Icefields carrying a 70 pound pack”.

This just one of the many story, that are waiting to be told.

US Health care loss and Canada’s Health Care loss seem to be turning in to a good business in South Asia. Medical tourism to Asia is fast gaining popularity around the world. Apparently, the people have realized that they do not need to be tied down and suffer when there are world class medicos waiting to help them on another part of the planet.