In our local Sunday January 5th 2014 issue of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, an article by Denis D. Gray of The Associated Press was published under the headline caption, Some find Alzheimer’s care in far-off nations.
Denis’ article described a growing trend of Swiss citizens who are looking to place their elderly loved ones, suffering from Alzheimer’s, in nursing facilities overseas rather than within their own country, citing formidably expensive monthly rates in their own nation. Switzerland, by the way, was ranked No. 1 in health care for the elderly in 2013 in an index compiled by the elderly advocacy group HelpAge International and the United Nations Population Fund.
Swiss citizen Ulrich Kuratli placed his elderly wife, Susanna Kuratli, in Baan Kamlangchay, a residential treatment facility for dementia 5,600 miles away in Chiang Mai,Thailand. Dementia care in Switzerland at high end clinics costs $15,000.00 or more per month. Although the Swiss government would cover two-thirds of the bill for Susanna’s care were she to remain in Switzerland, that still leaves $5,000 a month or more that Ulrich would have to shoulder. By contrast, the Thai facility located in Chiang Mai, cost only $3,800 per month.
According to this article reporter, it comes down to basically this:
“Relatives in western nations are increasingly confronting Kuratli’s dilemma as the number of Alzheimer’s patients and costs rise, and the supply of qualified nurses and facilities struggles to keep up.
Faraway countries are offering cheaper, and to some minds better, care for those suffering from the irreversible loss of memory. The nascent trend is unnerving to some experts who say uprooting people with Alzheimer’s will add to their sense of displacement and anxiety, though other say quality of care is more important than location.”
In my own opinion, though there are always exceptions, quality of care trumps location.
Besides Thailand, the Philippines is offering Americans care for their dementia loved ones for rates between $1,500 to $3,500 a month. According to this article, approximately 100 Americans are currently seeking dementia care placement in the Philippines.
I can personally vouch for the fact that this rate range is at roughly half of the rate we were paying for each of my now deceased parents in a local Sacramento, California skilled nursing home. The monthly amount we were being charged was at the daily rate of $245.00. Thus, a thirty-one day month would run $7595.00. Mind you, this rate that we were being charged was about average for what dementia care nursing homes are charging in California. There are higher end specialized facilities elsewhere in our state that can range anywhere from $9,000 to $10,000 per month.
Facilities along with active hotel and resort builders in Thailand see this trend continuing and are lining up building projects for dementia and Alzheimer’s care residents throughout their nation to handle the influx of Europeans and those Americans that they feel will also follow.
Citizens of Germany are already seeking dementia care outside the borders of Germany in eastern Europe, Spain, Greece and the Ukraine.
What does all this have to say about dementia care as we know it in the industrialized nations?
According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, there are more than 44 million Alzheimer’s patients globally and that figure is projected to triple to 135 million by 2050.
Dementia / Alzheimer’s care, whether provided to patients who remain within their own homes or for those whose continued care compels a skilled nursing facility, must become affordable for family members that are so often called upon to bear the burden of both the caregiving portion and the financial expense as well.
Our US health care system has grown up out of a landscape of separate grain-siloed cottage industry specialized professions that are paid and rewarded based upon offering activity rather than delivering corrective results.
We are overdue for a topdown integrated healthcare system, affordable to all, that includes provisions for senior dementia / Alzheimer’s care.
We needed it yesterday.
Jeff Dodson
January 8th 2014
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