Product Description

In 2004, at the age of fifty-three, self-employed contractor Howard Staab learns that a leaking mitral valve in his heart needs to be repaired. Left untreated, his doctors tell Stabb, his condition may kill him at any moment. The procedure to repair the heart valve costs at least $200,000 at the Durham Regional Hospital near Stabb's North Carolina home-if there are no complications.

This gripping memoir describes Stabb and Grace's experiences from the initial diagnosis through their trek to India, the operation Stabb undergoes, and the chilling dangers he faces after the surgery. In an afterword, the book offers resources for readers considering overseas health care, including hospital recommendations, visa and inoculation information, and things to look for when choosing an overseas health care provider. In all, the memoir alludes to the collective story of the more than 43 million uninsured Americans who face, everyday, the very real possibility that their lack of health insurance may either bankrupt or kill them-if not both.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #782377 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 269 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this inspiring, informative narrative, Grace explains how she and her partner decided to search abroad for health care. Grace and Howard Staab were just falling in love when, during a routine physical, he discovered he had a leaking mitral valve in his heart. A self-employed 53-year-old construction contractor, he had no health insurance. The hospital estimated his surgical bills would come to $200,000—if all went well. Grace, an artist who'd once worked in medical billing, tried to argue the fees down to what an insurance company would pay, but she was unpersuasive. They researched other options, including her medical student son's recommendation of a private hospital in India. Before long, the couple had a room at the Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi. A skilled team of doctors performed pre-op tests and then surgery—first to repair the valve, and then, when that didn't work, to replace it. The fee for both operations, plus extensive postoperative care, came to less than $10,000, which included looking after Grace's needs as well. Not only was the surgery successful, the hospital staff was well trained and well coordinated. While the North Carolina couple never got to do much tourism during their one-month stay, they do shed pleasant light on what seems to be a growing industry. (Aug.)
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From the Publisher
Stricken with a deadly heart condition, fifty-three-year old Howard Stabb, a self-employed contractor with no health insurance, chooses to travel to India to receive the surgery that can save his life. This gripping page-turner, written by Stabb's partner and companion on this remarkable journey, tells the story of their experiences in the increasingly common world of "medical tourism."

About the Author
Maggi Grace is a writer, visual artist, and business consultant living in Carrboro, NC. She holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She has taught writing for more than fifteen years to children and adults of all ages in classrooms, summer camps, shelters, prisons, at conferences and workshops.

Customer Reviews

Fixing a broken health care system
State of the Heart shines a glaring spotlight on our broken health care system here in the United States. To think that a $200,000 procedure here can be done for less than $10,000 in India is unbelievable.

As one of millions of Americans who can't afford health insurance, after reading this book I would have no problem going to India for care. In Howard's case, the treatment he received in the hospital there was much better than the treatment he got in the hospital here in the States, at a fraction of the cost.

This book also gives you a sense of the streets of India, the sights and sounds, so different from our own. It portrays the people of India as gracious, caring souls.

I can only hope if the situation ever arises, I will have a guardian angel like Maggi to help me through it!

State of the Heart, A Medical Tourist's True Story of Lifesaving Surgery in India
I borrowed the book "State of the Heart" from a friend and, at about the same time, I saw the movie "Sicko". What an experience, like a double whammy to our health care system in America. "State of the Heart" reflects many of the disturbing situations found in the movie. The book could be used as a guide to someone who might need to do the same thing, but it was like hearing someone tell a story of an incredible experience with major consequences. I enjoyed it so much I just bought my own copy of it tonight. It is so interesting to see how the same scenarios from the movie happened to two people who took a chance to get the medical help they needed and ended up being in the news. This book is timely and a great pleasure to read.

A Riveting and Inspiring Saga
Grace's book is at once the story of something all too ordinary -- the illness of a loved one -- and something extraordinary -- being pushed by a lack of options to travel halfway around the world in order to obtain treatment for that illness. The drama of her partner's sudden heart problem is itself the stuff of medical drama. But the true saga lies in the desperate search for a solution, made nearly impossible by the perverse way that we ration and pay for health care in this country, and the miraculous appearance of that solution in, of all places, India, where they ultimately traveled to have the surgery he needed, provided at a tiny fraction of the prohibitive cost that would have been entailed in getting care at home. Their story captures on a larger scale the urgency that any of us have felt when we realize that a friend or relative is ill, and we must ask ourselves, "They need help. What do I do?" Beyond the dimension of these individuals struggle against the odds, though, lies an incisive commentary on the current state of American health care, and paints in excruciatingly human terms the implications of being uninsured. The imagination and perserverence that Grace and Staab exhibit redeem this story as an inspiration. But those qualities also remind us how difficult it is to beat the odds that the system stacks against people like these, and by extension, how many of them do not make it, how many of them do not get -- through luck or pluck -- the care they need in time. In this, Grace offers (implicitly, without preaching) a searing critique of our peculiarly American practice of dangling "the best" medical care the world has to offer in front of our citizens, only to say to roughly a third of them, You Can't Have Any.