Bones of contention

 

Some of the people involved in this then used their expertise to set up an agency called Elective Surgery Europe (ESE; www.elective-surgery-europe.com) which now specialises in arranging trips for patients wanting orthopaedic treatment abroad. Although NHS waiting lists have come down from a high point of 18 months or more a few years ago to between 18 and 24 weeks, that’s still too long for someone in a lot of pain who can be treated in a few weeks elsewhere.

 

ESE sends people to AZ Middelheim hospital, one of the best in Antwerp, which sees 15,000 patients a year and is affiliated with the University Hospital of Leuven, as well as being part of largest care network in Belgium. The agency prides itself on its level of care; a representative stays with you all the time from when you leave the UK to when you get back.

 

A full knee replacement costs about £12,000 in this country but only £6,100 in Belgium. According to a recent study by the World Markets Research Centre, Belgium ranked top for medical purposes out of 175 countries, not least because secondary infection rates average less than 0.5 per cent.

 

Another favoured EU destination for orthopaedic patients, with comparable prices and rates of MRSA that are equally low, is France. About 2,500 patients from the UK have travelled to France for knee and hip surgery with an agency called People Logistics (www.people-logistics.com). They charge £6,850 for taking you from your home to a clinic in Abbeville in France for a hip replacement operation, including a two-week stay in hospital, and then driving you home. Another attraction of France is that the surgeons also specialise in the kind of minimally invasive knee surgery not routinely available in NHS hospitals.

At the moment the numbers travelling with People Logistics is fairly small, just 40 a month. But what’s significant is that at the beginning of the year they were only taking 25 people. “Patients are also coming to us because of growing fears over MRSA and C.diff,” said Phil Smith, one of the organisers. “We’ve never had a case of MRSA from the clinic we deal with, and it has a less than one per cent infection rate.” If the EU is going to insist that the NHS pay for such trips, that trickle could turn into a flood.

 

The number of people making the far longer journey to India for joint surgery is also rising, not least because the costs for hip replacement are around 40 per cent less there than they are in Europe, at £3,500. The procedure usually requires a five-day stay in hospital and a month in bed with regular physical therapy. Flights to India are about £370 and accommodation for a month, including ongoing treatment, comes to around £3,800, which still represents a saving of £2,330.

All India’s major private hospital groups report a growing number of foreign patients, of whom around 20 per cent are from Europe. Dr Vijay Bose, an orthopaedic surgeon at Apollo Hospital in Madras, operates on around 16 foreigners every month – mainly Americans, Canadians and Britons – who want hip-resurfacing, which enables a more active life than traditional hip replacement. Details on packages to Apollo Hospital can be found at www.treatmentsabroad.com.

 

Visitors might also go to the Wockhardt Hospital in Bangalore (see introductory article for more details), which includes orthopaedics among its specialities, and where more than 100 Britons have been treated in the past six months.

 

The orthopaedic treatment options being offered in Asia are becoming increasingly specialised. In the huge and luxurious Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok, Thailand (see introductory article) can be found a sign advertising the services of “Dr Golf”, an orthopaedic doctor who specialises in golf injuries.

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