Les Jones

Health Care > Report: 70,000 Britons to go Overseas for Healthcare in 2007

The news from the universal healthcare paradise of jolly ole:

Record numbers of Britons are travelling abroad for medical treatment to escape the NHS - with 70,000 patients expected to fly out this year. And by the end of the decade 200,000 "health tourists" will fly as far as Malaysa and South Africa for major surgery to avoid long waiting lists and the rising threat of superbugs, according to a new report.

The first survey of Britons opting for treatment overseas shows that fears of hospital infections and frustration of often waiting months for operations are fuelling the increasing trend. Patients needing major heart surgery, hip operations and cataracts are using the internet to book operations to be carried out thousands of miles away.

India is the most popular destination for surgery, followed by Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, Poland and Spain. But dozens more countries are attracting health tourists.

Here's a crazy idea: the U.S. should grant work visas with aggressive citizenships paths to medical professionals in all of the countries listed above. Hat tip to Kim du Toit.