Perhaps I should elaborate why I have put myself in a metal tube and had myself flung across the planet. Why I’m presenting to surgeons and doctors about the internet and why I find myself pinballing around South East Asia. The reason, in a nutshell, is www.revahealthnetwork.com.

In case you hadn’t noticed, our healthcare system is pretty much shagged. That’s not a criticism of the doctors and nurses who work in our hospitals. Indeed the dam-burst of incompetence that passes for a Health Department here is being plugged by the fingers of those nurses and junior doctors working a hard job for long hours without adequate material support.

That’s not my problem. If I’m sick and need an operation, I don’t care how underfunded the hospitals are; how much tax I pay in PRSI. I want the best treatment conceivable and I want the undivided attention of the physician and his team in the best equipped theatre possible.

In case you are wondering, the sky on my planet is a deep shade of purple.

I have as much chance of getting decent, attentive treatment here as monkeys flying out of my butt. Come to think of it that might actually attract decent attentive medical care! But short of such an anomaly, I can kiss that idea goodbye.

I have experienced medical care outside of Ireland when I broke my leg in Canada and I thought perhaps it was a peculiarly Canadian thing that they were so much more efficient, organised and *caring* then the Irish equivalent. Working with Revahealthnetwork.com has opened my eyes to a world of healthcare that is streets ahead of ours. Not streets; avenues, *boulevards*, indeed if the metaphor were to be anything close to scale, *motorways* ahead are they.

I’m in Singapore to talk to the assembled doctors and surgeons about how patients in the West can find out about their options in the East which is a growing field (called Medical Tourism). Right now it is manifesting itself in trips to places like Hungary for dental treatment and cosmetic operations (like face lifts), but more and more people are considering it for serious operations like orthopaedic and cardiac surgery. The next two legs of my trip are fact finding missions to hospitals in Malaysia and Thailand to see it for myself.

I have previously written about the hospitality of the South East Asian hotels. Consider then that the hospital care makes their hotel attendants seem shabby and lax. In doing the rounds of the medical clinics and hospitals I have taken to playing a game with them in my head. I call it “Lost in Trans-Asian”.

Here’s how it works. I walk into the hospital reception and stand in the lobby looking a little lost and confused. I mentally start to count the seconds before I am approached by someone (usually a nurse) looking to help. My current longest time is 7 seconds. Try that in A&E in Beaumont or The Mater. You’re result might also be 7. Hours.

I took a tour of hospital after hospital in both Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok and not once did they fail to blow my mind with the incredible attention to detail and quality. They operate on a completely different premise then we do, so different that often we had to clarify the basis of communication.

For example, when I asked them how many semi-private rooms they had they looked at me askance. What’s a semi-private room? You know, a room where only two patients sleep. They titter, another cultural difference I’ve picked up on. Laughter can mean embarrassment, even sadness. They look at each other. Then look at me. “Why would we put sick people in the same room?”. Yes, of course, Why would you indeed. Later, while on a tour of the hospital I’m taken on a tour of the patients rooms. I notice there are two beds in this one and say “Like this, this is a semi private room.” It turns out (after more tittering) that this bed is for the patient’s partner or family to sleep over should they want to keep their loved one company through the night. Of course it is, how silly of me. I didnt ask about such a concept as “visiting hours”, I dread to think the guffaws it would raise.

So the company I work for is basically a Google for Medical treatments. Want to find a dentist in Hungary? Hit us up. Want to find a cardiac hospital in Malta? They’re under M. You have options, you don’t need to accept substandard care and underfunded, understaffed hospitals nor over priced private clinics. If you are a nurse or a doctor in the Irish system, I’m sorry. I really am. Hand me a petition I’ll sign it. Bring it up at election, I’ll vote for it.

What I *wont* do any more…. is put up with it.