Improving Medical Access Abroad
TMC Representatives Assure Safety and Open Doors to Middle Eastern Patients

Last month, 35 local representatives completed a 12-day trade mission to the Middle East, led by Houston’s Mayor Lee Brown, including four individuals from the Texas Medical Center.

The group visited health care facilities in the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Riyadh and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; and Doha, Qatar.

“We were all concerned about improving medical access for Middle Eastern patients,” said Ben Orman, M.D., medical director of The Methodist Hospital’s Wellness Center, and the medical group’s coordinator.

Due to the events of last Sept. 11, he said, the group repeatedly heard how visa delay problems has limited Middle Eastern access to U.S. health care.

As a result, Middle Eastern patients are more often referred to European cities, principally in Germany and the United Kingdom, for their specialized health needs, as visa approval time is much shorter.

“We’re hopeful that circumstances will improve,” Orman said.

“The trip was very successful,” said Tania Matar, a business development specialist in the International Center at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. “It was just the right time to have an American delegation visit the Middle East, to assure them that about their safety while traveling in the United States, and that we are friends who still want to do business with them.”

Matar said the Europeans and Canadians having been taking advantage of the U.S. situation and have been aggressively marketing their health care systems and programs in the Middle East.

The group identified several opportunities to improve TMC health care relationships with the Middle East. Expanding residency and fellowship training opportunities for Middle Eastern physicians in the United States is one way to improve relations. If doors are closed to these people, the next generation will predominantly have European training.

“Opening the doors for physician exchange programs, and sharing equipment and knowledge with our Middle Eastern colleagues would be a great asset to all parties involved,” said Saleh Shenaq, M.D., who participated in the tour, and is chief of plastic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, Methodist and St. Luke’s. “The new and younger physicians who are in charge of health care would be more likely to refer their patients to their origin of training.”

Shenaq said he’d like to see frequent communications take place to ensure that up-to-date information is exchanged, by capitalizing on telemedicine, and regular lectures and seminars.

Other identified improvement opportunities include promoting good will by holding educational meetings in the Middle East, while encouraging physicians to visit here; training and recruiting Middle Eastern nurses and administrative staff; considering the establishment of a Texas Medical Center office in the region, on a trial basis, to compete more effectively with the Europeans and other U.S. institutions, such as the Mayo Clinic, that are actively working there; and creating a TMC presence in the international lounge at George Bush Intercontinental Airport that would foster a better understanding of the medical center’s mission, and help foreign patients quickly navigate the facility. Also, a TMC-based Immigration and Naturalization Service office could assist patients with visa requirements while receiving care, and provide a convenient location for those unable to make the journey to the downtown office.

“It was a great trip and an eye opener to the medical delegates,” said Nagib Mustafa, an international attaché at Texas Children’s Hospital. “Referrals, training, facility management and physician exchange programs were various programs requested by key Gulf Region medical leaders.”

“I was impressed with the generosity of the Middle Eastern people,” Shenaq said. “They had great passion for U.S. citizens.”

Matar concurred. “We were very well received and submerged with generosity, warmth and kindness,” she said.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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