Most tourists hope they don’t need medical attention while travelling.
Anne Laven is just the opposite; she’s travelling specifically to get treatment.
Laven has multiple sclerosis and will travel next month to a hospital in Albany, New York to undergo the so-called Liberation treatment, in effect a widening of some arteries to increase blood flow and, according to those who have had the treatment, reduce the symptoms of her MS.
That puts Laven among the thousands of Canadian medical tourists who feel compelled to travel abroad for treatments that aren’t available here for any number of reasons.
“I’ve looked into this quite a bit,” Laven says. “There should be angioplasty available right here for people with MS.”
Angioplasty is a proven technique for opening clogged heart arteries. A pioneering treatment for MS patients uses angioplasty for opening veins in the neck leading to the brain, with most MS patients reporting immediate relief that lasts for months and sometimes longer.
However, in Canada and many other countries, the technique is not offered as it hasn’t yet passed scientific muster.
“It’s really quite scandalous and quite shocking that the procedure isn’t offered to people with MS here,” Laven says.
Medical tourism is becoming a phenomenon in Canada, with sick people taking extraordinary measures to get the treatments they want and which aren’t available here.
No one’s calling the so-called Zamboni treatment a scam, it’s just not scientifically proven yet to the satisfaction of most in the Canadian medical community.
At the other end of the scale are those patients desperate enough that they are willing to cast their fate to questionable treatments in faraway lands, often at huge expense with no guarantee of the results they seek, or worse, possibly making their conditions worse.
It leaves patients in a quandary – but it does the same for doctors, too.
Dr. Françoise Baylis had such a case in her office just the other day. She advised that patient not to fall prey to the siren song of quick and easy, but expensive, fixes available in a faraway land. Her patient’s reaction? He’s going anyway.
“He said, ‘It’s my body and I can do what I want,'” Baylis recalls. “And on some levels, he is absolutely right.”
Baylis is a professor as well as the Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University in Halifax and she’s been extensively published on the subject of medical tourism, of which she finds four kinds: illegal (buying eggs, sperm, organs or surrogates which are not allowed in Canada); waiting lists (don’t want to wait for that hip replacement? Fly to India or Thailand); low cost (some surgeries can be had elsewhere at a fraction of the cost here); or simply unproven in Canada (like in Laven’s case.)
Travelling overseas for medical procedures that are not yet proven in Canada leaves doctors in a conundrum, Baylis says, but even more so when the patient is a child who cannot make an informed decision, so parents make the decision for the child. That scenario brings to mind the case of a blind Moncton baby whose parents will take her to China for stem cell injections in the hopes that their child will gain sight for the first time.
“It’s way more complicated when it involves a child,” Baylis notes.
The medical world is awash in claims of what stem cells can do for just about any illness. It is not awash with evidence that many of those claims are true.
“In a Canadian context,” Baylis says of stem cell injections, “we would say these are unproven, though that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work.”
Somewhat surprisingly, most of those contemplating exotic treatments in a foreign land actually do consult their regular doctor first. When it comes to the so-called Liberation treatment for MS patients, some doctors are convinced the treatment will, at best, help; at worst do no harm. Others are waiting to see some hard scientific evidence.
Laven was one of those who sought the advice of her neurologist before deciding on travelling to New York for the innovative therapy which, anecdotally at least, has been hailed by MS patients who have undergone it. The doctor’s advice: don’t do it.
However, she’s convinced the big business that is Canadian medicine is biased against angioplasty for MS patients, who often spend thousands of dollars per month on pills and generate many more thousands in doctors’ visits.
“And maybe it’s because it’s new and they haven’t learned much about it yet,” Laven says.
The procedure has few risks, has been used in heart patients for decades, is cheap at about $2,000, and if, as in some cases, Laven finds blessed relief of her symptoms only have those symptoms worsen again later, she’ll just get another angioplasty.
Laven calls it “a strange thing” that at age 56 and as a mother of two, she’s now an activist for MS patients wanting Liberation treatments to be available for all, closer to home.
She’s helping to organize a fundraiser, not for her trip but to help pay for legal action to force authorities to offer the therapy in Canada, spearheaded by MS sufferers themselves via the web site www.angioplastyforall.com. The event takes place Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. at the Moncton Wesleyan Church, 945 St. George Blvd. in Moncton, with a meal, testimonials and information.
“Just think what a joyful thing it would be if people with MS, which is a progressively more horrible disease, could take advantage when something like this comes around,” Laven says. “It would be such a wonderful thing if everyone with MS could get this treatment.”
Times & Transcript