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A Pink Cross employee closes the door of an ambulance carrying two Individuals discovered alive after they have been kidnapped in Matamoros, Mexico, final week. Two of 4 Individuals have been discovered lifeless, after they have been caught in a cartel shootout, officers mentioned Tuesday.
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A Pink Cross employee closes the door of an ambulance carrying two Individuals discovered alive after they have been kidnapped in Matamoros, Mexico, final week. Two of 4 Individuals have been discovered lifeless, after they have been caught in a cartel shootout, officers mentioned Tuesday.
AP
The 4 Individuals who have been shot at and kidnapped in Mexico have been reportedly visiting for medical tourism — making them a part of a booming business that’s important to Mexico’s economic system.
“Pre-pandemic, some 1.2 million Americans traveled to Mexico for elective medical therapy,” Josef Woodman, CEO of Sufferers Past Borders, advised NPR. His agency publishes a information to worldwide medical journey.
This is an replace on medical tourism, and the latest tragedy:
U.S. medical journey is rising sharply
“At the moment, the market is recovering quickly in Mexico, practically again to its pre-pandemic ranges,” Woodman mentioned.
Almost 780,000 folks have been projected to depart the U.S. for well being care in 2022, in accordance with Healthcare.com, citing knowledge from the medical journey web site Medical Departures.
That outburst of exercise bought a giant enhance in late 2021, when the U.S. relaxed key border restrictions with Mexico.
Costa Rica is the second-most common vacation spot for U.S. guests looking for medical care elsewhere, Woodman mentioned. It is a explicit draw, he added, for folks within the Northeast and Southeast.
Most individuals journey for dental and beauty work
Beauty surgical procedures are simply one of many procedures which might be far cheaper in Mexico — for years, folks have been visiting from the U.S. to get elaborate dental work or beauty remedies completed, or to choose up antibiotics and different medicines at favorable costs.
Many individuals additionally journey to get orthopedic work completed, changing knees or hips for lower than half the price of such procedures within the U.S.
“North American sufferers journey to Mexico for care primarily to save lots of 50-70% over what they might pay in the US for an elective therapy,” in accordance with Woodman.
Medical tourism does convey dangers, consultants say
Whereas a component of threat is inherent in lots of procedures regardless of the place they’re carried out, medical tourism can heighten problems, in accordance with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Potential issues vary from the hazards of flying in a pressurized aircraft cabin too quickly after a surgical procedure to the problems of getting follow-up take care of a process completed overseas.
Medical tourism numbers are on the rise in Mexico, after the observe was curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions. Right here, overseas sufferers are seen on the hospital Oasis of Hope in Tijuana in, 2019, in Mexico’s Baja California state.
Guillermo Arias/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Guillermo Arias/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Medical tourism numbers are on the rise in Mexico, after the observe was curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions. Right here, overseas sufferers are seen on the hospital Oasis of Hope in Tijuana in, 2019, in Mexico’s Baja California state.
Guillermo Arias/AFP by way of Getty Photos
However a number of the most severe warnings from the CDC are for infections, from wound and blood infections to pathogens that may be extra widespread or resistant within the host nation than within the U.S.
“Latest examples embrace surgical website infections attributable to nontuberculous mycobacteria in sufferers who underwent beauty surgical procedure within the Dominican Republic,” the CDC says, “and Q fever in sufferers who obtained fetal sheep cell injections in Germany.”
U.S. medical vacationers price Mexico extremely
A 2020 analysis paper that surveyed some 427 Individuals crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in California for medical companies discovered that a lot of the respondents “felt that Mexican well being care companies are of the identical or higher high quality in contrast with these in the US, for a decrease price.”
Individuals had come from 29 states throughout the U.S. to get care in Mexico, with the overwhelming majority pushed by price considerations, in accordance with the paper, printed within the Journal of the American Pharmacists Affiliation.
The researchers additionally collected knowledge in regards to the medical vacationers themselves, reporting a mean age of 64.5 years. Their commonest yearly earnings vary was reported to be between $25,001 and $50,000 — however that displays lower than 1 / 4 of the respondents.
Greater than 400 of the survey’s 427 members mentioned they might undertake extra medical tourism sooner or later, the paper mentioned.
Particulars of the latest violence are nonetheless rising
At the least one of many U.S. residents who have been caught up within the latest tragedy was reportedly going to Mexico for a tummy tuck operation. However the group’s automobile got here below fireplace hours after coming into the border metropolis of Matamoros, Mexico, from Brownsville, Texas.
Two of the 4 died; all are reported to be natives of Lake Metropolis, S.C. Their identities haven’t been launched, however kin have been talking to NPR and different retailers.
Mexican officers say they consider the 4 have been caught in the course of a battle between drug cartels within the state of Tamaulipas — an space that’s below a do-not-travel advisory from the U.S. State Division.
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