Medical Travel
Pain Drain
The availability of quality medical and dental treatments at budget prices abroad is luring more and more Brits from the NHS to the IHS - the international health service.
No, we're not talking about favourite holiday destinations (although that comes into it too), but a different kind of travel: medical tourism. Exasperated by long NHS waiting lists and the high cost of private treatment, Brits are heading overseas in droves - 100,000 last year, according to the information agency Treatment Abroad, up from 70,000 in 2006 - for the good of their health.
While the British Medical Association is keen to highlight a few isolated cases of overseas procedures gone wrong, the vast majority of patients return with tales of Harley Street-quality service at less than half the UK cost.
Overseas clinics offer a range of quality, cost-effective treatments, from dental care, plastic surgery and orthopaedics to liposuction, cardiology and IVF. So far, women account for about 70 per cent of medical travellers, with breast augmentation the most popular procedure, followed by facelifts and tummy tucks. Angelina Jolie lips are also a frequent request. Others, including more and more men, hope to come back with a 'Hollywood smile'.
There is also a growing trend towards complementary and alternative therapies, like the 'anti-aging' treatments offered by the Vitallife Wellness Center in Bangkok or the procedures some clinics in India mix with traditional ayurvedic medicine and yoga.
To help satisfy the growing demand, specialist agencies have sprung up to organise medical visits, some working in partnership with specific medical facilities abroad. For example, Beautiful Beings (www.beautifulbeings.co.uk) sends cosmetic surgery clients to a clinic in Prague, Elective Surgery Europe, (www.elective-surgery-europe. com) works with orthopaedic experts in Antwerp and Big Smile (www.bigsmileinternational.com) has connections with cosmetic dentists in Macedonia.
How they compare (in ££)
| Country | Hip reaplcement | Breast Implants |
| UK | 8,000 | 4,350 |
| Belgium | 5,580 | 2,070 |
| Czech Republic | 2,219 | 2,196 |
| Hungary | 4,450 | 1,930 |
| India | 3,188 | 2,087 |
Sun, Sea and Surgery
While it may not be the cheapest destination for medical traveller (although you'll still save half or more compared to UK prices), Cyprus offers a combination of factors which may make it the best. With only one university on the island (and no medical school), Cypriot surgeons have all studied abroad, many at top universities in Europe and the US. They also tend to stay abroad to gain experience, coming back at a later stage in their career to set up their own practice.
Cyprus is already a known destination to British holidaymakers, and due to its colonial past (it was a British protectorate until it gained independence in 1960), English is widely spoken. Doctors are especially fluent and, crucially, are familiar with the medical terminology. Throw in the high standards of accommodation and a near-perfect climate (making it a great place to recuperate), and Cyprus provides a real 'comfort zone' for British visitors.
The island's leading medical coordinators, Picture Perfect, based in the popular holiday town of Limassol, is run by sisters Jo and Niki Matsentides with fellow UK-born Cypriot Claire Makrides. When the Cyprus Tourist Organisation set up a department to exploit the potential of marketing Cyprus as a destination for medical travellers, one of the first companies they turned to for advice was Picture Perfect.
Brits make up 90 per cent of Picture Perfect's clientele. Sixty per cent of them opt for plastic surgery, the rest for cosmetic dentistry. You can even get a group discount if you go with friends, especially if the same surgery can be done on the same day for two or three people. Picture Perfect can exchange anything from 30 to 40 mails (including photographs for doctors to carry out an assessment) plus telephone calls before a client arrives in Cyprus, matching them with the best practice for a particular procedure and providing an itemised quote of costs so that there are no surprises when they turn up for treatment. Says Jo Matsentides: "We build a relationship with them. We feel we know them before they come over."
When it comes to appointments, patients from abroad are given priority treatment, with most clinics willing to reshuffle their calendar to accommodate them. A visitor can usually get cosmetic surgery at two weeks' notice. (Compare that with the UK, where it can take a month to six weeks just to get a consultation.)
Picture Perfect charges a flat fee for its services, typically £300 for a two-week stay. For that they will book your flights and accommodation based on your budget, meet and greet you at the airport, transfer you to your hotel and get you settled in. They will also take you to all your medical appointments, give you a mobile phone so that you can keep in touch with them 24/7 and keep family and friends up to date with your progress. Some clients even ask to be accompanied into the operating theatre, often to film or photograph the procedure.
Says Claire Makrides: "For some clients it's their first time travelling alone. They're about to have a life-changing experience. They feel insecure. We're at their beck and call while they're here. During recovery we talk to them every day. It comforts them that we're with them."
Further info www.pictureperfect.com.cy
Smiles better
No, I'm not in a private art gallery, but the reception area of a dental practice in Nicosia, the bustling, modern capital of Cyprus. And the purpose of my visit is not to get the obligatory holiday 'art fix', but to take advantage of the most advanced dental treatment around at prices most UK dentists wouldn't leave the squash court for.
Like nearly 50,000 other people in the UK, I had been unable to fi nd an NHS dentist who could see me within a reasonable time period and found private dental care to be outwith my budget. So I followed the example of some 40,000 fellow Brits who sought dental treatment abroad last year (the majority of them in Hungary) and hopped on a plane.
The Nicosia Dental Polytechnic is a far cry from those dentists' waiting rooms all too familiar to most of us Brits, with their dog-eared copies of Reader's Digest the only distraction from the ominous whine of a drill somewhere at the end of the corridor.
Here, the receptionist offers you a freshly made cup of coffee or a herbal tea while you wait, while Sir David Attenborough's mellifl uous tones narrate The Life of Mammals on the plasma TV screens, a particular distraction for younger patients.
Dr Marios Taramides and his team of specialists run one of the most advanced dental clinics around, where the emphasis is as much on putting the patient at ease (you can even have a pre-appointment Thai massage if you're feeling particularly nervous) as it is on operating the hi-tech apparatus you would expect in a cutting edge practice.
An accomplished photographer (his landscape pictures adorn the walls and are auctioned off every year to aid a local children's cancer charity) as well as a published poet, the good doctor is positively evangelical about his work, decrying some 'innovations' designed by dentals labs to part patients from even more of their hard earned cash, while more traditional, well proven materials and techniques are abandoned.
He is particularly critical of dental standards in the UK, saying: "A dentist proposes the things he knows. For example, he'll destroy two good teeth to create a bridge, whereas what the patient really needs is an implant."
Before my own visit, Dr Taramides, who trained in Germany and Sweden and is president of the Periodontal Society of Cyprus, recommended that I get a UK dentist to take a panoramic x-ray of my mouth, have it scanned and email it to him. "It's just like having you in front of me," he explained over the phone.
Try getting a UK dentist to grant that simple request, especially if you're not registered with them. Aware that many patients plan to send their x-rays overseas for an assessment, they'd rather turn you away than accept the fee for that service.
Says Dr Taramides: "By not doing panoramic x-rays for non-registered patients, it's like British dentists are convincing people that they should go abroad. UK dentists are narrow-minded. For example, they could benefi t a lot from doing follow-ups on behalf of overseas dentists. But they play a little arrogant. This will bring them down, if they don't wake up before it's too late."
Dr Taramides also claims that high UK taxes and offi ce rentals virtually force dentists in Britain to either recommend more expensive dental care than is necessary or, at least, take on more private patients in order to pay the bills.
And what of the treatment itself? Ask people what they find scariest about visiting the dentist, and they'll almost certainly say the injections. Dr Taramides, however, has devised a unique technique to minimise the discomfort, massaging the gum as the needle is inserted while getting the patient to slowly open and close their mouth. (Something to do with the motoric nerves and sensoric nerves working together.) Result: a nearly pain-free experience. I could even have watched a movie on a pair of special goggles while he worked on me. (No, Marathon Man is not on the list.)
How they compare (in ££)
| Country | Porcelain veneer | Implant | Root canal | Crown | Cleaning |
| UK | 500 | 2,000 | 450 | 570 | 80 |
| Cyprus | 345 | 1,305 | 180 | 370 | 60 |
FURTHER INFO www.dentalcyprus.com
How to get there
Thomson fly flies on Wednesdays year-round from Glasgow to Paphos in Cyprus. Fares
from £229 ret., incl. taxes and charges. Thomson fly also flies on Sundays from Glasgow to Larnaca from June 15 to
Oct 26. Fares from £289 ret., incl. taxes and charges. T 0871 231 4691, www.thomsonfly.co.uk
Where to stay
On the southwest coast of Cyprus, the Palm Beach Hotel & Bungalows in Larnaka (47 kms/
29 mls from Nicosia) has an ocean front location and a combination of garden and sea view rooms, suites and bungalows. Rates from £88 per double room B&B. Further info: www.palmbeachhotel.com
Getting around
Price comparison website www.carrentals.co.uk compares prices from over 45 different
car hire providers, incl. Opodo, Holiday Autos and Thrifty to fi nd the best prices in over 4,000 locations worldwide.
Prices for one week's car hire in Cyprus start from £111 (economy class), picking up from Paphos or Larnaca airport.
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