Sask. residents flock to Mexico for bariatric surgery
Where there’s need, there’s also opportunity.
In response to long wait times for bariatric surgery in recent years, two consulting firms have set up shop in Saskatoon, specializing in arranging trips to private Mexican clinics for people desperate to lose weight.
But neither Saskatchewan doctors nor the government have any idea how many people go — and the public health system is stuck with the bill when things go wrong.
“We don’t know how common this is and we also don’t know if the majority come back and don’t have any problems,” Karen Shaw, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, said.
Melanie Wildman founded consulting firm Weight Loss Forever after her own bad experience. In 2009, she picked what she thought was a reputable Mexican doctor based on online reviews.
But Mexican medicine is like the wild west, Wildman said. A patient who chooses a random clinic won’t know if staff are qualified, if doctors are lying about credentials, or if a facility is clean.
“I really didn’t know what I was getting into,” she said, “and I was one of those patients that came back with complications.”
When she recovered from severe heartburn and infections, she started a support group for others in her situation. That turned into a business when she partnered with Mexico-based surgeon Dr. Liza Pompa.
They co-own an independently inspected hospital in Tijuana, where they send all of Wildman’s clients.
The cost of the service includes the surgery — in most cases a vertical sleeve gastrectomy — as well as flights, accommodation, driver, medications and personal support.
The hospital boasts a low complication rate. When there are complications, the centre flies patients back to the hospital for treatment. Of those with complications, fewer than one per cent use the Saskatchewan health care system, according to Wildman.
In the last three months, 76 people have gone to the clinic through the Saskatoon office, gross revenues are up 50 per cent over last year, and the business has offices in Alberta, B.C. and New Brunswick, Wildman said.
“People are suffering that don’t have access to care, and waiting lists are a shame across the country,” Wildman said.
Katrina Schierling, who works as an administrative assistant at Weight Loss Forever, had the surgery in July, following the example of her own doctor. At the time, she was five-foot-four and weighed 300 pounds. She couldn’t lose weight through diets or exercise, she said.
“The way I saw it before this was, ‘There is no end,’” she said. “In the next couple years I could have diabetes or high blood pressure or other complications that would keep me from living my life to benefit my children.”
“PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING THAT DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO CARE, AND WAITING LISTS ARE A SHAME ACROSS THE COUNTRY.”
MELANIE WILDMAN
Since then, she has lost more than 80 pounds without complications, following a strict post-op diet. An innocuous strawberry seed stuck in an incision can cause an infection, and eating too much can spring a toxic leak into the abdominal cavity.
“Now, I have a better outlook on life. I’m hopeful for the next day, I’m not dreading waking up in the morning or having my kids ask me to go sledding,” she said.
Debra Simons owns another firm in Saskatoon, Weight No More Consulting Ltd., which she started after her own successful surgery in Mexico in 2010.
“When I went, I went by myself and wasn’t really sure where I was going, what I was doing, what I was getting myself into,” she said. “So I set up my program so people would know, first of all, that it was safe to go to Tijuana, Mexico, for surgery, and the doctors are qualified and the hospital is a legitimate hospital, and to take all the guesswork out of it.”
In the last 18 months, Simons said, she has had more than 100 clients. Aside from one minor infection in an incision, there have been no complications, she said.
Bariatric surgery is “almost impossible” to get in Saskatchewan, and private surgeries in Canada can cost around $40,000, she noted.
“We can fly to Mexico and back for under $10,000,” she said. “That’s your surgery. That’s someone travelling with you. That’s the whole nine yards.”
In 2012-13, 98 people had gastric bypass surgery in Regina through a provincial program. Five of them had waited longer than 10 months. As of October, 36 patients were on a wait list, nearly a third of whom had waited longer than three months.
Out-of-country bariatric surgery isn’t covered by the province because the surgery is available here.
The provincial health ministry doesn’t know how much it’s spending to treat medical tourists’ complications. Individual family doctors may follow up with their patients, and hospital staff encounter those with complications, but there’s no master list.
Without a comprehensive list of complications to compare with the total number of procedures, and without knowing what those complications were, it’s impossible to say how common they are and which countries and clinics are dangerous, Shaw said.
She hopes the people who do get the surgery on foreign soil ensure good communication between their surgeon and their family doctor over followup care.
“I think it would be a good start if we had some discussions as to how do we educate them and make sure they’re well attached to someone in the community that can assist them when they come back,” Shaw said. “Because that’s a bit scary, I would think, for the patient.”