Spine surgery
Meridian Care Group is a BC licensed travel agency. We coordinate planned spine surgery at hospitals abroad for Canadians who pay privately. A surgeon reads your MRI first and tells you every option, not only fusion. One named advisor handles it from your first call to your recovery at home. You decide.
Hospital package only, from written partner prices, converted to Canadian dollars at the Bank of Canada rate of 25 September 2026 and rounded. Complex cases are priced only after a surgeon reviews your imaging. Flights, hotel extras and travel insurance are separate. Plus our $950 CAD document management fee. Your own price is confirmed in writing after the hospital reviews your records. See every written price or build your journey.
Name and email is all I need. Patrick Fillion reads these himself and replies, usually within the hour, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm Pacific.
That is the national median from GP referral to treatment, published by the Fraser Institute in 2025. Almost a year, while a disc presses on a nerve. For a back problem, waiting is not neutral. Muscle wastes, sleep goes, painkillers stop working, and some nerve damage stops being reversible. If you have been given a date that is months away, or no date at all, it is worth finding out what else exists before you accept it.
Not a questionnaire and not a price list. You send your imaging and your notes, and an experienced spine surgeon reviews the films themselves and comes back in writing with what he would do, why, and what it costs.
From imaging received to a written surgical opinion is usually one to two weeks. If you decide to go ahead, surgery is typically arranged within a month or two rather than the better part of a year.
Nothing is booked and nothing is paid to a hospital until you say so. If a surgeon tells us he cannot help you, we pass that on exactly as he wrote it.
Most people who contact us about their back arrive with one of these, already diagnosed here in Canada:
The right operation is the surgeon's call, not ours, and it depends entirely on what your imaging shows. These are the procedures our partner hospitals perform:
Awake spine surgery is real, and it is not experimental. One of our partner hospitals has confirmed to us in writing, on their letterhead, that they perform full endoscopic spine surgery with the patient awake, that they are among the pioneers of the technique in their country, and that for a patient with a known neuromuscular condition they would consider it their preferred approach rather than a general anaesthetic. If a general anaesthetic is the thing that worries you, or your own doctors have raised it as a risk, that is a conversation worth having. We will put the question to them in writing and send you their answer unedited.
Spine cases move on imaging and nothing else. A description over the phone tells a surgeon very little. To get you a real opinion we need:
If you are in Ontario, you can usually pull your own imaging the same morning through PocketHealth without going through your doctor. Most provinces have a route that does not require your GP, and we will tell you what yours is.
Hospitals are not interchangeable and we will not pretend they are. Before you pay anyone anything, we tell you in writing which specific hospital your case has gone to and exactly what accreditation that hospital holds. Some of our partners hold JCI accreditation. Some hold national or other quality accreditation instead. That is a real difference and it is yours to weigh, so we put it in front of you rather than behind a general claim.
Meridian Care Group coordinates travel and care. We do not provide medical treatment or medical advice. Whether surgery is appropriate for you, which procedure is right, and the outcome of any operation are always the treating surgeon's decision. Wait time figure is the 2025 national median for neurosurgery from GP referral to treatment, Fraser Institute, Waiting Your Turn 2025. Every case is different.
A Canadian patient
“It was the best thing I did.”
Susan, a nurse from Vancouver, was told she would wait over a year for her new hip. She had it done in Turkey and was walking with a cane 3 weeks later. Patients' own words. Every case is different, and individual results vary.