This December is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. This got me thinking about families requiring to travel abroad for treatment for their children. What special preparations might need to be made. How would this work? It would be great to hear any individual experiences?

In the meantime, here are a few stories that provide some food for thought about taking children for treatment abroad.

I read an article about a doctor in India, Devi Shetty, who is planning to build a new hospital in the Cayman Islands that would primarily serve Americans in search of lower-cost medical care. Currently Dr. Shetty has a flagship heart hospital in India, as well as a 1,400-bed cancer hospital.

At his Cayman Islands hospital, he plans to build and run a 2,000-bed general hospital an hour’s plane ride from Miami. According to Dr Shetty, procedures, both elective and necessary, will be priced at least 50% lower than what they cost in the U.S, and he hopes to draw Americans who need surgery their plans don’t cover. However, some people have questioned whether Shetty’s high volume treatment policy could result in a loss of quality, but Jack Lewin, Chief Executive of the American College of Cardiology, says Dr. Shetty has done the opposite – used high volumes to improve quality. At Narayana the large number of patients allows individual doctors to focus on one or two specific types of cardiac surgeries, including pediactrics. For example, Narayana surgeon Colin John, for example, has performed nearly 4,000 complex pediatric procedures known as Tetralogy of Fallot in his 30-year career. The procedure repairs four different heart abnormalities at once. Many surgeons in other countries would never reach that number of any type of cardiac surgery in their lifetimes.

Travelling for medical treatment abroad

I did not find stats on how many children are travelling to the hospital in India for treatment. But the point is that hospitals like the one Dr Shetty is building in the Caymans, with a similar ethos to the current hospitals in India, may be a place where UK parents would consider travelling with their children in the future for treatment abroad.

But then that got me thinking again. Is that really the case in the UK? Do children travel abroad for treatment?  Or, is treatment for children covered on the NHS reducing the need for travel for treatment abroad? Well, not always, according to the following article.  

 The Deller family, who have a son with a rare form of cancer, recently travelled  to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York for specialist cancer treatment for the son. 17-month-old Joshua received a special antibody treatment called immunotherapy. Joshua was diagnosed with an advanced form of the aggressive childhood cancer, neuroblastoma, on Christmas Eve last year. Since his diagnosis, community fundraisers and events raised £150,000 to help send Joshua to America.

His mother, Amy Deller said Joshua had received excellent care in England on the NHS and at Great Ormond Street Hospital prior to going to New York. But Amy had been told that after her son received his first course of intensive treatment on the NHS there would be no more. As a result, they decided to travel for treatment abroad in the USA to increase his chances of beating the disease. But this week a spokesperson for Surrey Primary Care Trust said there was a system whereby the family could apply for funding for Joshua’s treatment in America. However, there is no guarantee an application would be successful, and Joshua still required further treatment. For more info, take a look at the article. The family still have to raise a further £200,000 so Joshua can have more chemotherapy. You can donate at www.justgiving.com/joshua-appeal.

So as December approaches, and we think of Children’s Cancer Awareness Month, it is clear that treatment abroad can have a part to play for cancer and other child diseases. However, the situation is complicated, and relates to each individual situation – as the stories I have looked at show. There is always a requirement for extensive preparation, with advice taken from your relevant medical professional, depending on the method of travel, destination, ongoing treatment etc, as well as valid travel insurance to cover the trip (Take a look www.allcleartreatmentabroad.co.uk for more info).