Offshoring of Surgery Gives Pause

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    It looks like US paper mill technician Carl Garrett won’t have his gall bladder or left shoulder operated on by doctors in India, as originally reported by the Christian Science Monitor here.


    According to the report, Garrett was to be leaving for New Dehli on September 2, 2006 to receive his two operations overseas in order to save his company — Blue Ridge Paper Products — and himself tens of thousands of dollars in medical treatment. (He was also going to get $10,000 back from his company, a cut of the savings everybody was to enjoy.) His two operations in the US would have cost $100,000; they were to run about $20,000 in India — including 24-hour exclusive nurse care.


    Now, according to this press release from the UFW, the union intervened and the entire idea was scrapped. The union "remains steadfast in its commitment to rebuild a domestic health care system, one that does not subject our members other U.S. citizens to the immeasurable risks of dealing with foreign health care providers."

    I wonder how Garrett feels about missing out on that pre-op side trip to the Taj Majal.