| Independently reported | |
| A documented programme | 100 consecutive children from 20 countries treated at one German centre, 2008 to 2017[1] |
|---|---|
| Outcomes in that programme | No periprocedural deaths; five-year survival probability 94.4 per cent[1] |
| Continuity | 86.2 per cent received continued care in their home countries[1] |
| Access claim | Six billion people said to lack access to cardiac surgical care; derivation not verified[2] |
| All rows are independently reported: no official statistics on this travel were located. The single-programme figures describe one centre and 100 children, not the sector. | |
Cardiac treatment abroad covers travel for heart surgery and interventional cardiology. The sector divides between commercial medical travel to established destination hospitals, which is extensively marketed and almost entirely uncounted, and humanitarian transfer of children with congenital heart disease, which is far smaller and far better documented.
What a documented programme looks like
A 2023 study reported on a humanitarian paediatric congenital heart surgery programme run by a German charitable association at a university heart centre. Over ten years from 2008 to 2017 it treated 100 consecutive children from 20 countries in low- and middle-income regions: 89 received cardiovascular surgery, 8 catheter intervention only, and 3 were found not to be invasively treatable.[1]
The outcomes reported are the reason the study is useful here. There were no periprocedural deaths and a five-year survival probability of 94.4 per cent. Median mechanical ventilation was 7 hours, median intensive care stay 2 days and median total hospital stay 12 days. At follow-up 86.2 per cent had received continued care in their home countries, 96.5 per cent were in good mental condition, 94.7 per cent in good physical condition, and 98.3 per cent in age-appropriate education or employment.[1]
The continuity figure is the one that distinguishes a transfer programme from ordinary medical travel. Nearly nine in ten children were followed up at home afterwards, which is the arrangement that most commercial medical travel does not make.
This is one programme, one centre and 100 children. It illustrates how such transfers work and what they can achieve. It says nothing about the scale of humanitarian cardiac transfer globally, and should not be generalised.
The six billion figure
Writing on global cardiac surgery routinely opens with the statement that six billion people lack access to safe, timely and affordable cardiac surgical care. A 2023 article in a European cardiothoracic surgery journal states it in those words and attributes it to a 2022 paper in a cardiology journal.[2] The 2023 article states the figure as a bare fact, does not characterise it as modelled or measured, and gives no methodology.
The originating paper could not be opened for this entry, so how the figure was derived, what data underpin it and what reference year it describes are all unknown here. A population-access figure spanning every low- and middle-income country is in the nature of things an extrapolation rather than a count, but that is an inference and not a verified fact. The figure is therefore reported as a claim made in one journal and restated in another, and is not presented as a measurement. That said, the qualitative point it carries is not in dispute in the literature: access to cardiac surgery is described there in terms of workforce shortage, scarcity of centres, fragmented supply chains and variable quality, none of which the same article quantifies by region or income group.
What is not counted
No evidence was found that any registry or statistical body counts foreign cardiac patients, in either direction. Per-procedure cost comparisons for cardiac surgery circulate widely in medical travel marketing; they are supplied by the providers selling the operations and are not audited, and none appears in this entry.
See also
- Humanitarian medical transfers, the mechanism the paediatric programmes use
- Medical travel for children, for consent and the best interests standard
- Cancer treatment abroad, the other high-capacity specialty with the same access gradient
- Medical tourism and health system capacity, for the supply-side question
References
- Furniss et al. Benefit From a Humanitarian Pediatric Congenital Heart Surgery Program Over a 10-Year Period. World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, 2023; programme period 2008 to 2017. Independently reported: peer-reviewed single-programme outcome study. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Vervoort et al. Five years since defining global cardiac surgery. European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, vol. 64, no. 2, 2023. Independently reported: the article restates the six billion figure and attributes it to a 2022 paper in JACC: Advances, which could not be opened for this entry. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
Sourcing note: the two journal articles were opened and read on 30 September 2026. The six billion access figure is attributed to the paper that states it and the paper it cites, rather than reported as established, because the originating paper could not be opened and its derivation, data and reference year are therefore unknown. The humanitarian programme figures describe one centre and 100 children and are labelled as such. No official statistics on cardiac medical travel were located in either direction, and no cost comparisons appear here.