All religions have their unique places of worship, their hallowed ground; the Wailing Wall, Lourdes' Grotto, and of course Mecca, to name just three. Pilgrims and clerics journey to these places looking for answers, seeking inspiration, many hoping for a transformative experience that will rid them of their ills, deliver them from their infirmities.
In a similar way, each year tens of thousands of morbidly obese patients make their own pilgrimage, a journey into a hospital operating theater to cure their overweight bodies and transform their burdensome lives.
Who can blame them? Obesity is a demoralizing, life shortening disease that carries with it an array of other afflictions like chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, diabetes, or worse. It's a horrible way to live. Life spans of the obese are statistically shorter, with a quality of life no one would envy.
So growing numbers of the seriously overweight, having failed with traditional strategies of diet and exercise, and desperate to lose weight, now pin their hopes on laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery.
Indeed, those with sufficient financial resources do not hesitate to opt for this procedure. Celebrities like opera singer Deborah Voigt and comedienne Rosanne Barr have both undergone this life changing operation with amazing results.
However, for millions of less well off patients, the high cost of gastric bypass (in some places as much as 20K Euro) has put this option far out of reach. Moreover, reduced hospital capacity and constrained health service budgets have combined to push waiting lists in some countries to as long as 5 years.
Obesity Surgery rises in the East
Well that was yesterday. Today, bariatric patients on a tight budget are looking eastward and finding the solution to their weight loss problems in the tiny Baltic country of Latvia.
Already a "best-kept-secret" destination for cosmetic surgery, Latvian hospitals are seeing an influx of weight loss surgery patients from across Europe, with Riga suddenly becoming the new Mecca for discount gastric bypass. Latvia seems a strange place for obesity treatment, but the facts speak for themselves. For example, a standard Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operation, which today costs 15K Euro in London, can now be had for less than 6K Euro in Riga. And mind you, not in some dodgy storefront clinic either. Private hospitals in Riga are modern, state-of-the-art facilities indistinguishable from top Western clinics.
John Atkinson, Manager of Baltic Bariatric Services, describes the situation this way, "After the Soviet system collapsed our Latvian hospitals were is serious disrepair. But that was 20 years ago. Since then EU financial support has really paid off with modern technology, renovated hospitals and surgical talent available at a fraction of Western prices."
One such example is Jurmala Hospital, located in the Baltic sea resort of the same name. Little known in the West, Jurmala is in the heart of the so-called "Baltic Rivera" It's home to Latvia's political elite as well as numerous wealthy Russians. Seaside villas and hotels, once drab warehouses for workers on holiday, have been updated and expanded to accommodate the wave of Russian tourists arriving each July. That's when the city plays host to Russia's biggest music festival, Novaja Volna, "New Wave", a showcase for Russian pop stars and aspiring music wannabees.
Gastric Bypass for the Financially Challenged
"Our hospital caters to high income locals as well as affluent Russian tourists. Both these privileged groups expect first class service and medical excellence." says Julia Sencis, a patient coordinator at Jurmala Hospital. "For foreign gastric bypass patients, it's our combination of low prices with Western quality standards that's the big attraction."
Atkinson agrees, "Patients are already well informed about the procedure but up to now couldn't afford it or had to wait. Now they can fly in with 2 weeks' notice, have their gastric bypass, and be back at work the following week. Our surgeons are all specialists, Western educated, and our prices some of the lowest in the world. From the patients' perspective, it's an irresistible value proposition."
Of course, gastric bypass surgery is not like a trip to the dentist. Weight loss patients understand that gastric bypass is a serious invasive procedure that does involve some risk. But for the millions of obesity sufferers who live every day under threat of early death, it seems like a risk worth taking. Thankfully, now there 's a place where even a relatively small amount of money can reshape bodies, rescue health, and transform lives. I'm not sure even Mecca and Lourdes combined could do that.
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