Writers Strike: Why We Fight

Various folks have been putting out videos, explaining why there's a writers strike.

If like most people you aren't too familiar with the issues, this is a good place to start:

Medical Tourism

(Originally published in the Powell River Peak)

Once upon a time, rock stars and celebrities went to India seeking enlightenment. It was the hip thing to do.

Jacquie Brock went for a different kind of hip.

The Cranberry Lake resident is a poster child for what it means to be active and healthy in one's senior years. Except for her hip. She started having mobility problems several years ago. The situation wasn't life-threatening, but the pain of even simple movement and walking was making life miserable for her.

Unfortunately, getting medical procedures that don't involve life and death, like hip replacement, can be a painfully slow process.

(There's more...)

"It was going downhill fast," said Brock. "In July I was in the doctor's office and he phoned a clinic on Vancouver Island. They said, 'she's on the list to get on the list to see a specialist, and we'll phone her in September or October.' Not for an appointment, just for an update on the list."

This is how she found herself in Chanai, India. Medical travel has become big business--a multi-billion dollar business by some estimates, with patients from the United States (US), Canada and Europe taking advantage of lower costs in India, Singapore and Thailand to get cut-rate dental care and surgery.

Healthbase, a US company, arranged all the details of Brock's procedure, from anaesthetic to X-rays. The company even arranged all necessary visas.

Brock left Powell River on November 10 and was back on the 29th. This was a very quick turnaround. The trip to India left Brock with expenses of about $8,000 in medical fees, and substantially more in travel costs, in addition to the 32 hours of flying each way.

It's the cost side of the equation that makes medical travel prohibitive for the average person. To date, only a handful of Canadians have taken advantage of this opportunity. The BC ministry of health doesn't track statistics, but Healthbase said they have dozens of Canadian clients, not thousands.

Rather than research a specific country or company, Brock started out researching a technique. Sitting lakeside in the Cranberry home she shares with husband Bob, Brock described the procedure, known as Birmingham resurfacing.

"Instead of cutting the top off your femur and driving a titanium ball down the center of the leg bone," she said, "they resurface the socket with titanium and then top the ball at the top of your femur with titanium. It's much less traumatic, you can imagine."

"Look," she said, standing up and then raising her leg, first out to the left, then straight forward in front of her. "It's so smooth. I haven't been able to do that in years and it doesn't hurt. It's amazing."

Brock said physiotherapy should allow her to stop using canes by the end of the year. Her mobility has improved immeasurably and so has her mood.

Of course, there are caveats.

BC Health Minister George Abbott advised caution before procuring out-of-country services. "It is very much buyer beware," he said. "Patients who do receive surgery or medical treatment in another country must accept they do so at their own risk, and realize that complications may arise, for which the provider of the service will not accept responsibility."

But working with an international company like Healthbase is hardly the same as getting a back-alley facelift, said Brock. The doctor in the Indian hospital (part of the international Apollo Group), Vijay Bose, had trained with the Birmingham team that developed the technique, and has performed more than 1,000 surgeries.

Brock's physician, Dr. Nicholas White, said there's no real reason to oppose the move if the surgical team is good. "This isn't really a totally new phenomenon," he said. "We've had people going to Mexico for decades to get dental work or cosmetic surgery."

The ministry also noted improvements over the past five years: wait time for knee replacements is down from 25 weeks to 19.9 weeks, hip replacement, down from 18.7 weeks to 13.3 weeks, and cardiac surgery, down from 15.1 to 11.3 weeks.

"That's great," said Brock. "But I couldn't even get in to see the specialist to get evaluated to go on the wait list."

Sometimes the overseas trips are called medical tourism, because people combine their medical experience with travel. But with Brock's limited mobility, that wasn't an option. She did enjoy what she saw of India, however.

"The hospital was a bit dated, like a 1940s hotel," she said. "The doctors and the nurses and staff were just marvelous, caring and loving."

Brock found the experience humbling.

"I've been taking care of myself for years," she said. "But when I was in high school, I abused my body with student sports, and then there were all the years I was helping my husband deliver deep freezes and hide-a-beds that were beyond my strength. But I said I could do it.

"My generation, that was the thinking. You were independent and you never asked for help, you just bloody well did it."

Some of that streak comes out when she talks about her trip to India. She saw what she had to do and she did it. BC is not one of the provinces, such as Ontario, that are looking at plans to help pay for out-of-province surgeries that can't be done locally. Not only did Brock pay for it all, but now she has to pay for her physiotherapy out-of-pocket as well.

"Fortunately my pocket can do it," she said. "I know not everybody's can."

Hummus Sushi?

Yummy....