Medical procedure costs

One of the toughest things about living and working in a foreign land is the excessively high cost of falling ill. When you are in your home country, in addition to being a native of the land, you have a whole set of advantages that’s stand you in good stead whenever you are taken ill. For one thing, you have a support system that ensures that you feel well taken care of. For another, being used to the place, the climate and the food cultures, you know how you can tackle and repair your system. Finally, the native medicines and drugs react on your body more easily and provide a solution much faster than in a foreign land. But probably the most important aspect is that medical procedure costs are a fraction of what they would be abroad.

I realized this the hard way. When I had to go to my first foreign country to work, I landed there will little more than a job on hand and the prospect of a good life. But a few months of homesickness, bad food and no company made me very very sick. Not just literally but figuratively as well. But the ting that impacted me more than the sickness was the fact that the medical procedure costs were really formidable. It was also in a perverse sort of way the reason why I healed that much faster!

I often wondered why medical procedure costs need to be so much higher in developed countries than in developing countries. After all, since there are far fewer diseases and consequently patients, shouldn’t the costs be lower? But logic does not seem to work as well when it comes to medical procedure costs. In fact, medical procedure costs seem to work in a vague sort of parallel universe where they seem to be inversely proportional to the development of the country being spoken about.

Most foreigners in a foreign land will readily narrate their woes when it comes to the fact of medical procedure costs. And in most cases, they are justified. But governments and hospitals alike need to put in place systems and checks to ensure that a proper balance between the medical procedure costs and the welfare system are ensured. For governments the challenge lies in taxing their citizens enough in order to ensure that medical procedure costs are well within the purview of the poorest of the poor. For healthcare service providers, the challenge lies in the fact that they need to provide accessible healthcare to as many as possible with as few resources. Till these are streamlined enough to ensure that everyone gets to benefit, foreigners will continue to fight a losing battle against rising medical procedure costs.

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