With Health City Cayman (known locally as The Shetty Hospital) due to have its first phase building completion at the end of February questions have been raised how viable is it?

Many have wondered why the renowned health surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty chose the expensive Cayman Islands to build his new Health City project? His model of affordable medical care has worked well in the poorer countries like India but here?

Many of us locals have shaken our heads in disbelief.

Director of the project, Gene Thompson has said getting patients to Health City Cayman Islands would not be easy to begin with. Thompson said the hospital would not see large numbers in the first few weeks.

iNews Cayman have featured today two articles that show Medical Tourism is a rapidly growing industry. (See “Call to lift medical tourism” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/call-to-lift-medical-tourism/)

The first story features Melbourne, Australia and talks about wealthy medical tourists.

“Victoria’s new $1 billion Comprehensive Cancer Centre could become the state’s first hospital to host a private floor for insured patients and wealthy foreigners seeking world-leading cancer care.”

The second story that follows on from the first  is about surgeons from Alberta, Canada who are working at a private hospital in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

A Canadian woman from Calgary was willing to pay $40,000 for a knee replacement at the T&C hospital.

She had only a two week wait instead of at least seven months back home. She was in so much pain it was difficult for her just to walk.

So what exactly is “Medical Tourism”?

Quoting from the website news-medical.net:

Medical tourism (also called medical travel, health tourism or global healthcare) is a term initially coined by travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly-growing practice of travelling across international borders to obtain health care.

It also refers pejoratively to the practice of healthcare providers travelling internationally to deliver healthcare.

Services typically sought by travelers include elective procedures as well as complex specialized surgeries such as joint replacement (knee/hip), cardiac surgery, dental surgery, and cosmetic surgeries. However, virtually every type of health care, including psychiatry, alternative treatments, convalescent care and even burial services are available.

As a practical matter, providers and customers commonly use informal channels of communication-connection-contract, and in such cases this tends to mean less regulatory or legal oversight to assure quality and less formal recourse to reimbursement or redress, if needed.

Over 50 countries have identified medical tourism as a national industry. However, accreditation and other measures of quality vary widely across the globe, and there are risks and ethical issues that make this method of accessing medical care controversial. Also, some destinations may become hazardous or even dangerous for medical tourists to contemplate.

In the context of global health, “medical tourism” is a pejorative because during such trips health care providers often practice outside of their areas of expertise or hold different (i.e., lower) standards of care.

Greater numbers than ever before of student volunteers, health professions trainees, and researchers from resource-rich countries are working temporarily and anticipating future work in resource-starved areas. This emphasizes the importance of understanding this other definition.

The typical process is as follows: the person seeking medical treatment abroad contacts a medical tourism provider.

The provider usually requires the patient to provide a medical report, including the nature of ailment, local doctor’s opinion, medical history, and diagnosis, and may request additional information.

Certified medical doctors or consultants then advise on the medical treatment. The approximate expenditure, choice of hospitals and tourist destinations, and duration of stay, etc., is discussed.

After signing consent bonds and agreements, the patient is given recommendation letters for a medical visa, to be procured from the concerned embassy.

The patient travels to the destination country, where the medical tourism provider assigns a case executive, who takes care of the patient’s accommodation, treatment and any other form of care.

Once the treatment is done, the patient can remain in the tourist destination or return home.

END

There is even a Medical Tourism Association – go to: http://www.medicaltourismassociation.com/en/index.html

With the Cayman islands situated much closer to the USA and Canada than the other Caribbean Islands, and the poorer countries are even much further away, together with how much wealthy persons are prepared to pay for immediate treatment, a hospital here does have its attractions.

I am sure Cayman’s ex Tourism Director, Shomari Scott, and now the Head of Marketing at Health City Cayman Islands, is well aware of all this.

Medical Tourism is an expanding business even in these frugal times.