A major Toronto hospital is piloting a new way to raise revenue in an era of tight health-care budgets: Selling medical treatment to wealthy foreign patients paying out-of-pocket for Canadian care.
Sunnybrook Hospital’s board quietly approved an international patient program at the end of last year that has so far welcomed a Barbadian woman who paid about $60,000 for radiation treatment for breast cancer, and a Jamaican man who paid $20,000 for radiotherapy for prostate cancer.
All Canadian hospitals see foreign patients in emergencies, and at least one, Toronto’s University Health Network, raises millions treating international patients on a referral basis.
But Sunnybrook’s limited experiment – the hospital is treading carefully, planning to treat fewer than 10 international patients in a one-year pilot phase – is different in that the hospital is openly soliciting medical tourists.
“We’ve invested in a department of business development who’ve looked at a number of initiatives. This is one of them,” said Michael Young, Sunnybrook’s chief administrative officer. “Through our website and such, we are beginning to advertise that we are, in essence, open for business.”