MONTREAL - The surgeons of the McGill University Health Centre take umbrage at the
recent critical statements in the local media about our care for a critically
ill Kuwaiti woman in 2011 (Gazette, Feb. 2: “Kuwait deal uses MUHC doctors
and nurses”).
Our surgeons are dedicated to providing
world-class care to the Quebec community, teaching the next generation of
surgeons and developing new knowledge through research that will directly
benefit our patients. Based on our success in these efforts, we are recognized
around the world for our expertise and the quality of care we provide. We are
proud to have recruited and retained clinicians of the highest calibre,
dedicated to living in Quebec and working at McGill teaching hospitals.
The Kuwait educational program, supported by
Montreal Medical International and briefly described in The Gazette last
weekend, came about as a result of our international reputation and our
long-standing openness to training physicians from around the world. The
collaboration has helped improve the standard of care for patients in Kuwait,
and has provided much-needed funds to our hospital. Over the three years that
the program has been in place, we have accepted only one patient for treatment
at the MUHC. This was a truly life-saving operation on a critically ill young
woman that could not have been done in Kuwait. To provide care for this young
lady, we used unscheduled operating-room time and an empty bed for the
post-operative care, resources that could not be used otherwise because of
government funding constraints. The revenue generated from this single
operation was then allocated to the budget used for care of Quebec citizens.
We all recognize that our health-care
resources are severely limited. Our funding system does not reward quality, nor
do we receive funding appropriate to the complexity of the clinical problems
referred for our care. The opportunity to provide life-saving care to this one
foreign patient was a win-win proposition that also benefitted the community to
which we are dedicated.
This is not unique. We constantly read about
compassionate care given to foreign children and adults in our province and by
other leading medical centres around the world.
There is a great distinction between our care
for a single patient in dire need and “medical tourism.”As Wikipedia puts it,
“medical tourism is defined as patient movement from highly developed nations
to less developed areas of the world for medical care by bypassing services
offered in their own communities. Medical tourism is different from the
traditional model of international medical travel where patients generally
journey from less developed nations to major medical centres in highly
developed countries for medical treatment that is unavailable in their own
communities.”
It is a great disappointment that this
compassionate act has been reported in such an unfair and unprofessional way.
GERALD M. FRIED
Dr.
Gerald Fried is surgeon-in-chief at the McGill University Health Centre.
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