Dialysis cruises
I couldn’t pass up posting about this subject when I saw it in my Yahoo news feed. In addition to the increase of all types of medical tourism around the world there are also some specialized combinations of vacations and medical services. The idea is to enable people with chronic medical conditions who would not otherwise be able to travel to enjoy the same vacations as healthy people. Take dialysis patients, for example. You would need to do a lot of planning and be very confident in your connections for dialysis treatment at your destinations before you committed to an extended trip. An enterprising company called Holiday Dialysis International is addressing this issue.
The dialysis cruise concept is one of their packages. They also arrange other vacations to popular destinations where dialysis can be arranged reliably. A spokesperson for the company said they have arranged dialysis in Philippines, Senegal, Kenya and Thailand. We know that Thailand is a high quality and popular medical tourism destination so that is not a big surprise. But Kenya and Senegal? Very interesting. For their cruises the company sets up dialysis wards and a specialist doctor on board.
One could envision an extension of this concept to medical tourism centers located on ships in international waters, similar to the idea of the ship-based entrepreneurial center being contemplated by some Silicon Valley people. The advantage is that the centers, whether engineering or medical, are located in international waters and not subject to the things that drive costs through the roof, like excessive regulation, politically motivated barriers to competition, immigration barriers, etc. I think this idea has legs and could be a boon for people who want to get medical treatment overseas but feel it is just too far to go and too costly. Instead, a short boat ride and it’s as if you are in a far away country in terms of instantly available medical treatments and their costs.