Americans May See Appeal of Medical Tourism in Cuba

HAVANA — Anuja Agrawal jumped on the phone. President Obama had just announced that he would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba — and Ms. Agrawal, who runs a medical tourism company in Orlando, Fla., did not want to miss her opening.

She reached a health care administrator in Cuba, agreeing to move ahead with a deal that they had been discussing for months in the hope that American patients could soon start traveling to the island for medical treatment.

“There was a lot of excitement about it,” said Ms. Agrawal, the chief executive of Health Flights Solutions, adding that if Americans start traveling to Cuba for affordable medical treatments, it could mean a big economic boost for the country’s health system. “For them, they’re looking at it literally like winning the lottery.”

As the Obama administration chips away at the economic isolation of Cuba, whittling at an embargo that is older than most people on this island, industries of many kinds are trying to figure out what the easing of tension will mean for them, and exactly how much wiggle room there will be.

Thousands of people from other countries go to Cuba each year for what is known as medical tourism: travel abroad for surgery or other medical care, often because the treatment is less expensive there or is not available where patients live.

While Cuba is well known for its government-run health care, the system also struggles with problems. Doctor appointments and hospital stays are free, but most patients must pay for their own medicines, which can be difficult on the island’s typically low salaries.

Some medicines are hard to find or unavailable, and hospitals may lack up-to-date equipment, although doctors said the government had recently been investing in modernizing some facilities. Health care workers also received a significant salary increase last year, with some of the higher-paid doctors seeing their monthly wages rise to $67 from $26.

Gail Reed, an American who edits a medical journal here in Havana, said she hoped that additional income from Americans traveling to Cuba for medical care would be invested back into the Cuban health care system.

“Any injection of real, new sources of funding into the health system would be a boon to Cuba and Cubans,” Ms. Reed said.

A version of this article appears in print on February 18, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Tourists May Feel Cuba’s Pull for Health. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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