I still remember the moment John Banman described the pain. “It’s like a torch burning in your lower back, with red-hot pokers shooting down your legs,” he told me, wincing slightly as he shifted in his chair. We were sitting in his modest Winnipeg living room, surrounded by family photos and the February snow piling against the windows outside.
The 61-year-old former truck driver had spent three years waiting for spinal fusion surgery in Manitoba’s healthcare system. Three years of progressively worsening agony that confined him to his home, unable to walk more than a few steps without collapsing in pain.
“The surgeon here told me it would be at least another year, maybe two,” Banman explained. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
So last month, Banman made a decision increasingly common among Canadians caught in surgical backlogs – he boarded a plane to Mexico and paid $22,000 out of his retirement savings for a spinal fusion procedure at a private hospital in Cancun.
“I never thought I’d be doing something like this,” he said. “We’re supposed to have universal healthcare in Canada. But what good is free healthcare if you can’t actually get it?”
Banman represents a growing wave of what healthcare policy experts call “medical tourists” – Canadians leaving the country for faster treatment abroad. According to the Fraser Institute, over 217,500 Canadians traveled overseas for medical procedures in 2022, a 10% increase from pre-pandemic levels. While the data doesn’t break down by procedure type, orthopedic surgeries including back procedures rank among the most common.
Dr. Katharine Smart, past president of the Canadian Medical Association, sees these departures as a troubling symptom of a healthcare system under immense strain. “When Canadians feel forced to seek care elsewhere, it points to critical capacity issues that need urgent attention,” she told me via phone. “The pandemic exacerbated already existing surgical backlogs, but these problems have been building for years.”
For Banman, the situation became impossible when his pain medication stopped being effective. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t even play with my grandkids,” he said. His primary care physician had referred him to a neurosurgeon in 2020, but after initial consultations, he joined thousands of others on Manitoba’s surgical waiting list.
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the median wait time for spinal surgery in Manitoba was 32 weeks in 2022, among the longest in Canada and far exceeding the clinically recommended benchmarks. Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg, where Banman was waitlisted, has been particularly affected by staffing shortages in recent years.
“I started researching alternatives online,” Banman explained, pulling up a WhatsApp group on his phone with over 200 members – all Canadians sharing advice about medical care in Mexico, Thailand, and other destinations. “People were posting their success stories, their doctor recommendations, everything.”
After consulting with his family physician, who couldn’t officially recommend foreign surgery but acknowledged the reality of the wait times, Banman connected with a medical tourism facilitator who arranged his procedure at Hospital Galenia in Cancun. The facility, accredited by the International Joint Commission, specializes in treating North American patients.
Dr. Felix Ramos, the neurosurgeon who performed Banman’s operation, trained at McGill University in Montreal before returning to practice in Mexico. In a video call from his Cancun office, he explained the phenomenon from his perspective: “About 40% of my patients now come from Canada. They arrive in terrible pain after waiting years for surgery that, medically speaking, should happen within months of diagnosis.”
The procedure itself went smoothly. Banman spent five days in hospital and another week recovering in a nearby hotel before flying home. Now, six weeks post-surgery, he’s walking without assistance for the first time in years.
“I feel like I got my life back,” he said, carefully demonstrating how he can now bend to tie his shoes. “But I’m angry too. Why should I have to spend my savings and travel to another country for healthcare that my taxes are supposed to cover?”
Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara acknowledged the problem in a statement, noting that the provincial government has committed $14.8 million to address surgical backlogs specifically. “We recognize that wait times for certain procedures remain too long, which is why we’ve launched a surgical recovery task force to implement solutions,” the statement read.
But for patients like Banman, these initiatives come too late. And medical tourism carries real risks, according to Dr. Danielle Martin, family physician and healthcare policy expert at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.
“When patients seek care abroad, there’s often little continuity with their regular healthcare providers,” Dr. Martin explained. “Post-operative complications can be difficult to manage, especially if the surgical notes are in another language or if different techniques or implants were used.”
The economic implications are significant too. A 2023 study from the University of Calgary estimated that Canadians spent over $690 million on out-of-country medical care last year – money that could theoretically support the domestic healthcare system if capacity issues were addressed.
For Banman’s part, his Mexican medical journey has made him an unofficial consultant in his community. “I’ve had seven people call me asking about my experience,” he said. “Two are already booked for surgery in Cancun next month.”
As we finished our conversation, Banman’s wife Karen joined us, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. “We shouldn’t have had to do this,” she said quietly. “John paid taxes for 43 years. The system failed us when we needed it most.”
Watching them together – relieved but financially drained, healthier but disillusioned – I couldn’t help but see their story as a personal window into the larger challenges facing Canadian healthcare: a system built on principles of universality and accessibility that, for many patients, no longer delivers on its fundamental promise.
As more Canadians like John Banman make the difficult decision to seek care elsewhere, the question becomes not just how to reduce wait times, but how to restore faith in a healthcare system that was once a source of national pride.
