The superbug reflects the local medical environment

The recent outbreak of the superbug NDM-1 as reported in the latest edition of the Lancet is a wake up call for all people involved in the globalisation of health. While there is a focus on the positives of access to high quality but more affordable care that medical tourism can deliver the negative connotation of bringing back to your native country something distinctly unpleasant from the country that you just visited makes us all stop and think.

It highlights very clearly that when considering an overseas destination for surgery, while the quality of the surgeon and the hospital is important, one aspect that is difficult to assess as to its quality is the medical environment in which the service takes place.

The medical environment includes all things that you can not see and take on trust. Like for example the blood supply, the ability of the nurses to understand and communicate with you, the practices of sterilisation of surgical instruments and so forth. Its the culture and practices under which medical treatment is delivered. It encompasses much more than the individual hospital or doctor; indeed they may have little control of it.

Hence in India the widespread unfettered use of antibiotics has created a medical environment in which a type of (gram -negative) bacterium has developed resistance to all known antibiotics. The only sure way not to have it colonize you and hitch a ride home is not to subject yourself to the medical surroundings where such a bug is endemic.

Thus if the medical environment to where you are heading is not aligned with or better to where you live, dont go even at if huge savings are on offer: the risk of going is very difficult to quantify.

Source: The Medical Traveller