world

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Get Healed In
The Holy Land

Innovative and inexpensive, Israel is
a "hot spot" for medical tourism.

-v-

ip .11

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251 Merrill 2nd Level
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,c011eagues visit an Israeli Iacfility.

248-642-0363

Closed Mondays
Engraving available

Gregory W. Moore
Special to the Jewish News

T

hinking of a trip to Israel? If
so, think about having a few
health care needs taken care
of while you are there.
Believe it or not, more and more
people are considering medical
travel. A Deloitte consulting firm
study estimates next year 1.6 mil-
lion Americans will travel abroad for
medical care. Israel is one of those
destinations.
Medical tourism got its start with
patients traveling abroad for low-cost
dental work and cosmetic surgery.
With huge increases in health care
costs, some deductibles in the $10,000
range and more people dropping
health care coverage all together,
the medical tourism industry has
branched out into orthopedics,
cardiac care, organ transplants and
reproductive medicine.
After all, who wouldn't want to
travel abroad for a knee replacement
at the cost of $11,000 — a price that
includes travel, accommodations for
the patient and a companion as well
as the actual procedure — when the
average cost for an equal-quality pro-
cedure in the U.S. is $65,000?
But lower price isn't the only attrac-
tion.
Some cutting-edge treatments
aren't available to all in the U.S. With
the increasing bureaucratic approval
processes implemented at the Food &

Drug Administration for new drugs
and devices as well as the ethical
debates regarding certain stem-cell
research projects, much of the rest
of the world is passing us by when it
comes to advanced life-prolonging
and saving measures.
Americans demand the latest and
greatest medical procedures and will
travel for them, especially in a situa-
tion where life hangs in the balance.
For example, the Ella Institute for
Treatment and Research of Melanoma
and Skin Cancer at the Chaim Sheba
Medical Center in Tel Hashomer,
Israel, is currently offering the latest
treatment for metastatic melanoma,
which is not offered anywhere else
in the world except for the National
Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda,
Md.
The NCI, however, has strict
admission criteria for this protocol.
But what about a Stage 4 metastatic
melanoma patient who is rejected by
the NCI? I have a close friend in this
precise predicament.
I recently visited Israel to inves-
tigate medical facilities looking to
expand their international patient
base. One can imagine my surprise
as I was sitting in a presentation at
Sheba Medical Center when they
began talking about the melamona
protocol and the success they were
having. I was texting my friend imme-
diately and began efforts to have him
admitted at the Ella Institute.

rx

2011

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Get Healed on page 50

December 1 . 2011

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