Briton too overweight for NHS, not for Indian doctors

NewKerala.com ^ | 2006-04-01 14:32:13 | IANS

[CarrotAndStick]

A Briton who was told by the National Health Service (NHS) that he was too overweight to undergo a life-changing operation has returned home satisfied after undergoing the surgery in India.

David Rogers, 62, from Abbeydale, Worcestershire, was told by the NHS that he was too overweight for the double hip and knee replacements that he desperately needed. Weighing almost 140 kg, he was told that he was about 37 kg too heavy for the surgery.

A satisfied Rogers remarked that he had been "thrown on the scrap heap by the NHS".

He reduced his weight to about 115 kg but could not go further to shed 12 more kg that was required for the surgery as his joints had made him immobile.

"I was in so much pain I couldn't lie in bed at night and had to sleep sitting in a chair. It was a vicious cycle because I couldn't do any exercise, so I struggled to lose any more weight," Rogers told the local media.

His wife saw a television programme about Britons flying to India for medical treatment and further investigations led her to a website that offers people access to top-class medical treatment in India.

The London-based manager of the website put the couple on to one Dr Nagaraj who was visiting London.

Rogers said: "I couldn't believe it - a surgeon actually came to my house, all the way from India. He put me at ease straight away and asked when I could go over for the operations."

Two weeks later, Rogers flew out to the Deepak Hospital, Dr Nagaraj's family hospital in Bangalore, for the first phase of major surgery - to reconstruct the knee and hip on the right side, at a cost of 10,000 pounds.

"I can't speak more highly of the nurses and surgeons there. The treatment I received was first class," said Rogers.

After two lengthy, complicated operations, he recuperated at a nearby retreat, and returned to Redditch recently.

"I can't believe the difference it has made to my life. I would recommend treatment over there to anyone," said Rogers, who is preparing for a return trip to India next January for work on the other hip and knee.

[xarmydog]

Wife and I go to a real nice clinic in Juarez.All the dentists live in the USA but have their practice there.Inexpensive,clean,warranty their work.They don't have big brother and huge malpractice payments.They will even pick you up in El Paso and drop you back off at the same spot.One day service for most procedures.Washington Dental Clinic,its on the web.Warning.There are a lot of bad clinics so be careful.

[freedomson]

Thanks for the translation.

Why can't the Brits just speak english? ; )

[B4Ranch]

"Otherwise, of course, an unlimited number of people would want unlimited free treatment."

This is the part I find objectionable. "an unlimited number of people would want" those of us who have led productive lives to pay their bills. It really irks me to see fat people on food stamps. Eating a salad for lunch must be unheard of in their community. Walking for exercise must be forbidden.

I won't get into any of the supposed prejudices they have towards soaps.

So now that they are 100 or 200 lbs overweight and their major organs and skeletal structure can't handle the load they want us to pay for their medical costs to keep them alive. Horsepucky!

[B4Ranch]

I don't know but I would imagine that there are dentists of the same caliber as your husband in Mexico. I've had some poor dental work performed by Yankee dentists that caused me to change who I went to for my dental work.

[Carolinamom]

My grandson, who is a sales rep for DePuy...a Johnson & Johnson company, told me that surgons hated to replace joints in seriously obese patients because it was a nightmare cutting through all the fat.

[ran15]

Yes and the quality is rising quickly in these developing nations. For a lot of people the choice is either go to foreign clinics or have nothing. Either their commie system won't do anything.. or in our system of malpractice, limited supply, regulations and so on they simply can't afford it.

[Spyder]

There probably are some of good caliber there - and agreed there are some bad ones (especially in the NE) here. However, how does the average Joe Schmoe determine quality and which to choose? If your odds of getting a good guy in Mexico are say 1 in 10 but your chances here are 9 in 10, is it worth the money you save?

[SauronOfMordor]

If your over 65 your not getting open heart surgery, kidney dialysis or pacemakers in GB.

If you are retired, then you are of no further use to the State. If you are no longer of use, then it is not in the interests of the State to keep you alive

[Triggerhippie]

308 Pounds, huh? How many dollars is that?

[SauronOfMordor]

My husband has seen Mexican dental work (he's a dentist) and in general it's a POS.

When picking somebody to do work, you get good people and bad people. There is no substitute for getting references from satisfied customers, preferrably people you know

I can see US practitioners opening offices in Mexico, where they would be immune from US malpractice laws and regulations, and in exchange offering lower fees in exchange for that.

[B4Ranch]

I think a lot of it would depend on the type of work a person needs done and how convenient it is to go across to Mexico.

I know lots of false teeth are done in Mexico for dentists in Tuscon who charge full American dollar.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

454 grams to the pound. Think of it in water terms: 454 ml must therefore equal a pint (a pint's a pound the world around).

Anyway, 140kg = 140,000 grams;

140,000 grams / 454 grams per pound = 308 pounds

[Kimmers]

"How about letting the patient decide if he wants to go ahead with treatment in light of statistics? "

Exactly, but not all Md's want to present statics nor do they pay attention to them and not all patients want to hear them.

Patients need to ask their surgeons questions. How many surgeries have you done? What is your rate of failure? What is your rate of infection? what is the rate of infection withing the hospital? Do you have any patient satisfaction scores?

I do not think we should be denying health care but with the shrinking health care dollar this may our future reality.

Medicare and Medicaid do not cover basic costs of joint replacement surgery so it may be increasingly more difficult for people to find surgeons to do that type of surgery.

[muawiyah]

You already see that in the United States where adjacent states have vastly different liability caps ~ for example, there's Illinois. The legislature there holds the needs of the trial lawyers to outweigh the needs of the people. In adjacent Indiana, the needs of the people for medical care are held to be paramount (or relatively so compared to Illinois).

The consequence is that in Southern Illinois ALL the babies are born in hospitals in Indiana. Up in the Chicago area heart and other surgeons are rapidly relocating their activities to Gary, Indiana.

Small Indiana towns that would ordinarily not be able to justify the expense of a hospital, have new hospitals, and so on.

Again, you do not need to go to Mexico to check out this phenomenon.

[wideminded]

Two weeks later, Rogers flew out to the Deepak Hospital, Dr Nagaraj's family hospital in Bangalore, for the first phase of major surgery - to reconstruct the knee and hip on the right side, at a cost of 10,000 pounds.

My son had an emergency appendectomy in the US, using laparoscopic surgery, which involved a total hospital stay of about 36 hours. The total charge was quite close to this.