Few Manitobans become 'medical tourists' in Cuba

Yahoo! News.

WINNIPEG, Oct 1 (CBC) - A Manitoba company offering "foreign surgery for the middle classes" is finding most of its patients come from the Maritimes and the United States, not its home province.

Choices Self Directed Healthcare will arrange for Cuban medical facilities to carry out a variety of surgical procedures - from cosmetic to neurosurgery - for patients from Canada and the U.S.

The "medical tourism" service can help Canadian patients avoid long waits for surgery, while for U.S. patients, the main attraction is reduced cost.

Company founder Daren Jorgenson says most of the company's clients have come from the United States and the Maritime region in Canada, not Manitoba.

"[Manitoba] is doing a fairly good job on surgery times, so that's why we're not seeing a lot of Manitobans call us for surgeries," Jorgenson told CBC News.

"The reason I say that is because we've probably had a lot more exposure in this province than any other province - being a local company - and we still haven't had a flood of people calling us for surgeries.

"But we've had a large number of people calling us from the Maritimes," he added. "Something's going on out there that they're not addressing the surgery wait times as well as [in] Western Canada."

Most of the company's Manitoba clients are young people who have suffered sports-related injuries who prefer to travel rather than wait any length of time for surgery at home, Jorgenson said.

Dave Kornachuk is one of those patients. He's planning a trip to Cuba for surgery on a leg tendon torn while practising martial arts last winter.

Kornachuk expects he'd have to wait about six months for surgery in Manitoba, but doesn't want to wait.

"My principle desire is to try and get on with this and repair this leg as soon as possible," he said.

More than 200 patients have travelled to Cuba for hip and knee replacements, dental implants, addictions treatment, diagnostic tests and other services, according to the company.

Treatment costs range from $1,400 for minor outpatient surgery to more than $20,000 for neurosurgery.