STATE OF THE HEART

Maggi Ann Grace, New Harbinger Publications, US$25

In 2004, Howard Stabb’s made the unexpected discovery of a leaking mitral valve in his heart that was cause for immediate medical attention. However, being uninsured meant that he and his partner, author Maggie Ann Grace, had to fork out a whopping US$200,000 for the procedure at a North Carolina hospital close to home, an amount simply too costly for the self-employed contractor.

While desperately seeking alternatives, a miracle came through when Grace’s son hooked them up with Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi, where the same surgery and aftercare was offered at just US$10,000.

This memoir documents Grace’s month-long sojourn in India, a daunting task by a woman who had to deal with an omnipresent communication barrier, the flood of emotions caused by constant worry for Stabb’s life and the prospect of caring for a man subject to frequent lows brought about by post-surgery blues.

Because of this experience, Grace became familiar with the critical situation of healthcare in the US, where more than 43 million uninsured Americans live each day with the spectre of contracting a major illness that could be equated to either “bankruptcy or death – if not both”.

She also discovered that First-World healthcare services did exist in, of all places, Third-World India, where “nurses care for their patients as if they made thousands” – although they were in actual fact earning a mere US$1.38 per hour.

And how is life for the couple four years after the New Delhi? Grace just completed a backpacking trip in Laos last April with her younger son Bryan, while Stabb is, well, doing the things he loves best – “building away (at houses), riding his bike and meditating”.

Kenneth Cheong