private surgery overseas, much much cheaper

aidan01

hi gang,
recently i looked at sites, mostly in asia, offering private surgery, (eye lazer treatment, etc etc), at a fraction of the cost in ireland or the uk. Has anyone travelled to asia for surgery, how was it, are you happy with the service there and the result of the prodedure. Do u reccommend it............
love to hear from those thats been there
thanks guys and dolls
oxoxoxo
aidan

aidan01

...

MrNuked

I've heard horror stories about cheap cosmetic surgery in Eastern Europe...there was a program on the telly warning people off it a while back. No idea about Asia.

Xterminator

i know people who go to the UK (NI) for dental treatment alright.

Also seen that documentary on uk tv about uk patients going to cheaper euro destinations for elective surgery.

X

mycroft

I know people who pop up the north for major dental work.

A friend traveled to france for an operation on his foot, the waiting list was only six weeks compared to six months here. :eek:

Also am I the only one who breaks out in a cold sweat when I hear the words "laser" "eye" and "cheap" in the same sentence?

Victor

Seems questionable to be honest. You only get what you pay for. And factor in the cost of flights, accommodation (assumming someone travels with you, which is handy as you won't be able to see for a while) and aftercare, it all builds up.

Also while the operation is cheap, how much is the hospital overnight?

aidan01

€600 compared with €4,400 here = one serious holiday of a life timre in thailand

OfflerCrocGod

mycroft wrote:

Also am I the only one who breaks out in a cold sweat when I hear the words "laser" "eye" and "cheap" in the same sentence?

No. I'd rather wear glasses then lose my eyesight forever :cool:

Paddy20

I have recently heard a lot about the first class, very reasonably priced operations available in ultra modern hospitals in India.

Where if you can pay, the waiting list is very short.

aidan01

love some details if u have any !!!

kensutz

I'm waiting 3 years for an op on my nose. Well 2 ops, 1 is to repair the damage I got from a player's elbow into the face while playing soccer and another is a medical condition. I'm well annoyed at having to still put up with theses probs.

Paddy20

aidan01 wrote:

love some details if u have any !!!

As far as I can recall, because India was very far behind the rest of the world. It had to start again from scratch, and everything is new. Plus most of the surgeons were trained abroad in countries such as the UK, Ireland the US etc, and many of those have happily returned to their homeland.

You could have a look at the voluntary health watchdog website: www.irishhealth.com/

They have an enormous database on health matters and services, and I am sure they carried a story and a debate about the really cheap high quality medical and surgical procedures available now in India.

If you have a problem locating the info, on their site. They also have a free Ask the Doctor service which you could utilise.

Or do a Google search on Hospital services/ Private and public in India. It should throw up some interesting details. Do not forget the Indian high commission or Embassy. We must have one in Ireland.

Good luck.

Paddy.

sceptre

Paddy20 wrote:

Do not forget the Indian high commission or Embassy. We must have one in Ireland.

Embassy of India
6 Leeson Park
Dublin 6
Tel: 01 496 6792/ 01 497 0959
Fax: 01 497 8074
E.Mail: indembassy@eircom.net

gandalf

ugh a eircom.net email address how very 1990's of them :eek:

positron

Indian Economy is booming (IT, call centers, Medical tourism and general tourism etc) and Indian Government is still stuck in 80's. I wouldn't be surprised if you find Indian Embassy here totally useless! However, Indian business sells them very well outside India, try a Google search for some very good leads.

Paddy20, you are right about India being 20 years behind rest of the world (well, the West at least), and there are a good few Indian doctors who have made a fortune working in the West and now happily settled in India, but only a very insignificant percent of them would be trained outside India – prohibitive costs ($ = 45 Indian Rupees) means only the wealthy can afford fancy American and European education – but Indian Medical schools have raised to the challenge have started producing some very serious talent in last decade – and while their service is relatively cheap to Westerners, it is still very expensive to ordinary Indians.

Medical tourism is ‘outsourcing’ in a smaller, individual scale – there is nothing wrong with it, and in fact, it makes a lot of sense. I would think NHS and the like should start looking into sending patients to India.

Meanwhile, private airlines like Virgin, Jet Airways etc have declared new services to India recently, which inevitably will bring down the ticket prices – its around 800 euros (average) per person to India at the moment.

positron

doh! sorry about bringing up an old post!

aidan01

good info there positron
thanks for your research
cheers mate

Memnoch

medical tourism to india is a very real thing.

Indian doctors are very competent and as long as you go to one of the big reputable hospitals your treatment will be quite good.

The reason it's so cheap is because of the value of money etc. It's not just medical but compared to ireland everything is much much cheaper over there. But not to those earning in Rupees. If you are earning in euros however that's where the difference comes in.

I would so do your research first, if you have any indian friends who are doctors ask them about what the big hospitals are.

one that i know of the top of my head that might deal with medical tourism is AIMS which is the All India institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Also a lot of the guys doing this have actually trained in the Uk and ireland. While it's true to say that the number of such doctors returning to work in india compared to the number of doctors that were trained in india working in the country is insiginificant, however if you go to the really big hospitals the ratio evens out a lot more, and that's where u will find these doctors.

Right now there is a lot of medical transplant tourism to pakistan though this is a very dodgy and unethical thing, but ppl over there are selling their organs for like under 50 euro's to "organ brokers" who then arrange for operations for western tourists. I'm not sure what the legal status of that within pakistan is, i know it's illegal in india.

antoinolachtnai

I don't know much about the topic, but I do know that when I was in Singapore, I got what seemed like excellent quality dental work (a root canal, among other things) done for about a third of what it would cost in Ireland. The Singapore dental service was much better than the Irish service. The work was done in a purpose-built clinic and the firm (Raffles Medical) had surgeries in a number of different locations. The dentist was polite and knowledgeable, and was surprised that I thought the treatment was so cheap.

By way of illustration, the first time I was in there (2001), I was charged around 13 euros for a thorough examination, including a couple of X-rays. When I returned to Ireland on a short trip, a much shorter examination without X-rays by an Irish dentist cost about 32 euros. (He confirmed the Singaporean dentist's recommendation for the root canal work.)

Now, I wouldn't recommend anybody to travel a distance for medical or dental work, certainly not to Singapore or India. But it isn't true to say that 'you get what you pay for'. Irish medical/dental services are overpriced for the relatively low level of service you get.