India for heart surgery?

[Marty]

There is a front page article in todays Post (www.washingtonpost.com) about a 53 year old carpenter from Durham NC who has no health insurance and was told he needed valve surgerydidn't say which valve). He was told probably by Duke ,that the surgery would cost around $200,000 and they would like $50,000 up front. The carpenter not a dumb guy, decided to outsource the surgery. He and his girlfriend went to India where he had successful valve replacement surgery , were pleased with first class treatment, and also had a side trip to the Taj Mahal. Total cost including transportation, hospital bill, surgeons fee, etc.----$10,000!

 

[bvdr]

I read that too, Marty, and thought about what a clever fellow he was.

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Money, money, money...

Money, money, money...

Out of curiosity I priced flights from the USA to Delhi...coach ticket is around $2,000 and first class comes in at $12,500. He and his girlfriend went, so let's say their flight costs were around $4,000. That puts the complete surgery and all medical care associated with it at just about $6,000. Unbelieveable isn't it? And they even got to see one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal.

Does this tell you what's wrong with the bloated Health Care System in the USA??? One thing the article mentioned was a surgeon's malpractice insurance in the US is around $100,000 annually while an Indian surgeon pays just $4,000 in India. Patients from the UK, Canada and France are also travelling to India for heart care due to long waiting lists for care in their respective countries.

There are Indian surgeons on staff at just about every hospital in the USA and I find it especially refreshing that this surgeon who founded the Escorts Heart Centre http://www.ehirc.com/ in Delhi left his $2,000,000 a year practice in NYC to help people.

Read the article...it's an eye opener. Thanks Marty

 

[Rebecca]

Here is more information on Howard?s surgery.

http://www.howardsheart.com/

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Thanks Rebecca....

Thanks Rebecca....

I invited Howard and Maggi to join us here on valvereplacement.com. Sure hope they do!! I'd love to hear of their experience in India.

 

[Marty]

Rebecca, Thanks for link to Howards heart. Howard and I had the same problem. I think the Indian surgeon did the right thing in using a bio valve. They are much better now than when I had my surgery 6 years ago.

 

[Harpoon]

Difficulty is, not everyone in need of a valve replacement is fit to travel like that....


My first heart surgeon was Indian, he was one of a few brave pioneers in pediatric heart surgery back in the day when it was new.

 

[Abbanabba]

Out of curiosity I priced flights from the USA to Delhi...coach ticket is around $2,000 and first class comes in at $12,500. He and his girlfriend went, so let's say their flight costs were around $4,000. That puts the complete surgery and all medical care associated with it at just about $6,000. Unbelieveable isn't it? And they even got to see one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal

Let's not forget though that the average person in India earns in a year what most of us would probably earn in a week. For the average Indian, $6,000 for surgery is probably just as exhorbitant as anything we would pay in our home country.

It's all relevant!

A : )

 

[Marty]

This information from one of my Indian colleagues -The number of "middle class" Indians, those with good education making a good living is greater than the entire population of the US. If you are in this class life is pretty good. He said his father owned a bicycle shop and they had two maids, a cook, a gardener, and a chauffer. Their paper "boy" was 55 years old, had a wife and 4 kids. The paper was always right on the doorstep inside the screen door every morning at 5:00 AM.

 

[Martin_W_Riley]

Source of Thread

Source of Thread

I posted a link to the article that is responsible for this thread in the new advancements section of this site (perhaps not the right section...)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6293825/

Cheers

Martin

 

[Marty]

Martin, I have never figured out how to post a link to an article in the Post . Can you tell me how to do it? Thanks Marty

 

[Gemma]

I think Jim was always quite impressed at the expense of valve replacement, as we'd read a few posts last year about how much they cost in the US - felt he was finally getting his money's worth from his monthly National Insurance contributions .
Then the other day there was an article in a newspaper about a man in London who had a minimally invasive aortic valve replacement, with a mechanical valve - at the end of the article was a sentence stating that on the NHS, the cost would be about £12,000 (approx $22,000) or £15,500 privately (just under $28,000). Presumably the cost of the operation wouldn't be much different for standard OHS valve replacement. I think he was a little disappointed it was cheaper than we thought!! But makes you wonder why it's so incredibly expensive in the US doesn't it?