From CTV, April 18, 2007:

Governments across Canada say they are working to bring down wait time for various surgeries and medical procedures. Some patients are getting tired of waiting and are choosing what is a growing trend: getting their operations performed in exotic locations like India.

CTV News medical correspondent Avis Favaro followed one man, Jeff Clarke, who did just that.

Clarke, 34, lived with severe chronic back pain, likely caused by work injuries. He found no one in the Canadian health care system able or willing to ease his suffering.

“I’ve seen three to four surgeons over almost three years,” he told Favaro. “Each time, I’ve waited a year to see these surgeons and once I did see them, they had nothing to offer. Nothing at all.”

He decided to take action after seeing a television ad offering surgery in a matter of weeks at a hospital in India. The ad was for a company appropriately called Surgical Tourism Canada, a Vancouver-based company founded in July 2005.

Read the rest.