She found it half a world away, in Singapore. Within a week of contacting the 900-bed National University Hospital, she was arriving there in a wheelchair after a 24-hour journey.

Khalsa, 50, an uninsured small business owner from Alaska, got her knee fixed, had physiotherapy and toured Singapore’s Sentosa theme park, equipped with a hospital-provided cellphone and emergency number.

All this for about one-third of what she would have paid in the U.S. for surgery alone, she says.

“It was a leap of faith coming here, but I would come back in a heartbeat. I would bring my child here for care. They took care of me with such grace and efficiency. It’s not all about dollar signs because you’re a foreigner. People genuinely care about you here.”

Allan Drescher of Calgary recently travelled to Singapore for back surgery on a degenerative disc after Canadian doctors gave him painkillers and put him on a 24-month waiting list, he says. “When I recovered from being dumbfounded, I fast-tracked myself to Singapore.”

National’s chief of orthopaedic surgery, Dr. Hee-Kit Wong, obtained his tests and X-rays ahead of his arrival, and surgery followed the next day. Cost for two weeks, including sightseeing: $22,000.

“It’s money well spent because now I’m pain-free and have my quality of life back,” says Drescher, 59, who works for an oil company. He calls Singapore’s health care “a well-kept secret.”

“I was expecting slums, street people and lots of pollution. But they’re ultra-modern. The hospital was super-clean, efficient and they treat you like family, not a patient. It literally blew my mind. Whoever’s sitting in Canada with a bad hip or back, don’t wait, just go.”

A 2000 report by the World Health Organization ranked Singapore, an island city-state with a population roughly equivalent to the GTA, sixth out of 190 countries for health care. (Canada placed 30th.) Singapore spends 3.8 per cent of its GDP on medical services.

The latest, possibly most state-of-the-art player in the medical tourism sweepstakes, Singapore hopes to lure Western patients frustrated with long waits or high costs, or both. But unlike India and Thailand, where medical tourism is the purview of private institutions, Singapore’s public hospitals are grabbing a piece of the market.

Hospital executives see no conflict because Singapore’s health system is already two-tier: The government provides basic services, while frills, such as private suites, nicer waiting rooms or access to top doctors, require extra payment.

Waiting lists are closely monitored to ensure local patients aren’t bumped for foreigners, says Dr. Lim Suet Wun, CEO of National Healthcare Group, which runs National and the 1,200-bed Tan Tock Seng Hospital, which was at the forefront of fighting SARS in Asia.

A typical waiting time for surgery is about a month for local patients, while Singaporeans who can afford it and foreigners footing the entire bill can get surgery within days.

What makes this possible is a relatively young and small population and excess capacity in the health system, says Dr. Fidha Alsagoff, CEO of Ministry of Health Holdings, which oversees capital projects at public hospitals.

Adds Dr. Chuen Neng Lee, National’s chief of surgery: “With a small population, the range and variety of cases is limited. If we want to do cutting-edge research and develop state-of-the-art techniques, we need to have a bigger pool of patients and complex cases coming in.”

That also helps attract top talent like Harvard-educated cardiac surgeon Dr. Uwe Klima.

“Here, I’m not just an end user doing what other people invented. We get to push medicine to the next level,” says Klima.

So patients may get access to the latest technology and medical techniques not yet routinely available in North America. Doctors here are using stem cells to repair tissue such as cartilage or bone. Heart valves are repaired rather than being replaced with artificial ones.

Neurosurgeons are pioneering robotic brain surgery guided by satellite navigation, which provides more manual dexterity during operations. Tan Tock Seng’s lab is fully automated and robots deliver meal trays.

More than 374,000 international patients came to Singapore in 2005, a figure officials hope to triple by 2012. Canadians represented only 1 per cent, but hospitals are putting on a push, appointing agents to recruit North American patients.

“It’s a bit of a hike from Toronto,” says Alsagoff, “but as the world flattens, some might find it a value proposition.”

GDP in the three months to June rose 8.6 percent over the previous year, better than the initial government estimate of 8.2 percent, the trade ministry said.

Overall, the economy grew 7.6 percent in the first half, it said.

The ministry said it now expects GDP to expand between 7 percent and 8 percent this year instead of between 5 percent and 7 percent. The economy grew 7.9 percent last year, one of the fastest growth rates in Asia.

“Growth has become more broad-based in the second quarter, with the financial services and construction sectors registering double-digit growth and the manufacturing sector remaining healthy despite a slowdown in electronics,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the city-state’s trade-reliant economy should benefit from the recovery in the Japanese and EU economies and continued strong growth in China.

While US economic growth has moderated it still “remains intact in the face of problems in the subprime credit markets.”

Widespread defaults in US housing loans to borrowers with poor credit records has rattled global financial markets because of fears of a spillover into the wider economy, dragging down consumption and investment.

Singapore’s trade ministry said this was the “chief downside risk” to the favorable external outlook.

CIMB-GK Research economist Song Seng Wun, who pegs full-year growth at 7.5 percent, said the government’s GDP forecast was on track, but current financial volatility could potentially affect growth in the fourth quarter.

“It is a bit early to tell whether this [credit woes] is contained or the beginning of something more serious as far as the credit markets are concerned,” Song said.

But not everyone is benefiting from the growth, and a widening income gap is posing a challenge to the nation’s cohesion, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Wednesday as the country marked its 42nd year of independence.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry raised its full-year economic growth forecast to between 7 percent and 8 percent from between 5 percent and 7 percent, Lee said, amid a positive outlook helped by low unemployment and healthy wage increases.

Singapore’s trade-dependent economy grew 7.9 percent last year.

“Workers are enjoying good wage increases and higher bonuses because businesses are doing well,” he said. “We are organizing ourselves more efficiently, and making better use of our resources.”

Lee said the country of about 4.5 million added 111,000 jobs in the first half of the year — an all-time high — and that unemployment stood at 2.4 percent.

Singapore also stands to benefit from favorable conditions in the region, Lee said, adding that while global financial markets have been choppy in recent days, the medium-term fundamentals for Asia remained strong.

“Asia has progressed, and become more developed and dynamic,” he said. “Singapore is at the heart of this rising Asia.”

However, Lee said, one of the country’s major challenges was to tackle an income disparity that has been widening in recent years as more low-skilled jobs are made redundant by technological advancements or moved to countries with cheaper labor.

“Income gaps are widening — here, and all over the world,” he said. “I know many older Singaporeans worry about whether they can make ends meet.”

Lee said the government’s approach in addressing the problem has been to strengthen social safety nets by improving education and training. To cope with the aging population, Lee pledged to keep medical care affordable for the elderly and make the country’s infrastructure more elderly friendly.

Between 2000 and 2005, incomes in Singapore’s wealthiest households increased at a 2.8 percent annual rate, while they declined by 4.3 percent in the second-lowest one-tenth of society, according to the government’s most recent survey.

Revenue rose 18.6 percent to a record $612.9 million.

Adjusted net income, which excludes one-time items, fell 32.4 percent to $81.9 million, or 23 cents per share, from $121.3 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected adjusted net income of 25 cents per share.

Before the earnings release, shares of Las Vegas Sands fell 1.8 percent, or $1.57, to $85.68. Shares rose $1.32 in after-hours trading to $87.

The company said it was ready to open the $2.4 billion, 3,000-suite Venetian Macao on Aug. 28 as its anchor property on the Cotai Strip and set a Dec. 20 opening for its $2.6 billion Palazzo resort, beside The Venetian in Las Vegas. The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, which is to cost $3.6 billion, is set to open in late 2009.

“It’s certainly an exciting time for the company as we open these trophy assets,” President William Weidner said on a conference call with analysts.

Higher costs in the quarter included $11 million in junket commission and labor costs at its Sands Macao property to “position us against new competition and to assure a smooth opening at the Venetian Macao,” Weidner said.

But he said those extra costs would disappear once the Venetian Macao opened this month as staff migrate to the new property and commissions would be cut for junket operators who bring in high-rolling clients.

“What’s fair is fair. We think the junket room rate that we have identified is fair for the billions of dollars that we’ve invested in product,” Weidner said.

High-end play on credit in Macau, or the amount wagered in its “rolling chip” program for VIP gamblers, rose to $7.3 billion in the quarter, up 70.4 percent from $4.3 billion in the second quarter a year ago.

The company also said it expected to save $40 million to $60 million a year in operating efficiencies after opening the Palazzo, which, when combined with The Venetian, would have 7,128 hotel rooms and 2.3 million square feet of meeting space on the Las Vegas Strip, making it “the largest integrated destination resort in the world.”

During the quarter, revenue at The Venetian in Las Vegas increased 14 percent from a year ago to $235.5 million, while revenue at the Sands Macao rose 21.6 percent to $377.4 million.

“When you’re four weeks now in front of a major, major opening, the biggest resort in all of mainland China … I think it bodes well for the stock,” said Steven Wieczynski, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. “With another huge property opening in December, things look pretty good for this company.”

Based on the Actual Findings Consumption of Households, Singapore ranked third at $19,262 per capita – behind Hong Kong $16,000 and Taiwan $14,000.

The AFCH calculates total household consumption which is an indicator of a population’s state of economic well-being . It also includes what they buy as well as i government’s supply like insurance, education and healthcare.

Included in the top five in the survey were: Brunei, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. The bottom countries were: Nepal, Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Mature international markets are going through the natural mode of settling into corrections. To take examples of current housing markets, the US is seeing prices falling for the first time in 11 years with around 4.2 million unsold homes at the end of April. The annualised rate of second hand home sales is also falling by 2.6 per cent to 5.99 million in April, compared to the UK, Ireland, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia, where recent price increases have been the largest. Even relatively new to fame, markets such as India are experiencing a cooling in the real estate prices. In any investment market prices eventually revert to a long term average. Home prices are cheaper in absolute and relative terms in Dubai and there is still some way to go, before the notion of a ‘bubble’ can be stamped on.

A rough parallel could be drawn between the Dubai freehold property market and Singapore. In Singapore rental prices are similar to Dubai, but property purchase prices are double. Whether that is going to happen in Dubai, or will Dubai rentals collapse due to oversupply, sending property prices lower is up for argument. It may be a little premature to make a definitive judgment on this critical point. However, we can draw some conclusions.

A quick view of the global property markets in recent years throws up certain consistencies such as static rentals and rising property prices. This can be attributed to falling interest rates, which have increased the real value of rentals and therefore property prices. The Dubai property market has yet to adjust to this, perhaps because the mortgage market is still relatively underdeveloped, and most Dubai property is still bought with cash.

As and when Dubai banks further develop their mortgage lending portfolios to something nearer to normal world levels, a possible expansion of local credit may push up property prices, unless the supply Vs demand equation changes.

The current rental yields, for example are quite high by global standards, at 7% to 10%, which still reflects the fact that the Dubai property market is still relatively under-matured. A longer term return to normalcy would mean either a drop in rentals or a hike in property prices. There are documented studies in the market that show that the Dubai real estate market will first undergo some kind of a correction downwards in capital and rental prices due to oversupply in 2008-9 (EFG – Hermes).

One thing is certain, in the long run, Dubai rental yields will be more in line with international yield patterns. Also, as mentioned earlier, the rapidly maturing mortgage market will see home prices being driven up and result in a drop in rental yields.

‘Will demand match supply?’ This is the million dollar question, and there is no doubt that in the medium-term, demand will sustain at current levels at least. The Dubai Statistic Department figures point to a Dubai population growth of just over 100,000 in 2006, with roughly 50% having a mid-end to high-end home owning potential. With a widely accepted practice of 2.5 people per unit, this would have meant a requirement of around 20,000 units of accommodation.

A shortfall in deliveries by around 10,000 to 15,000 units as per industry learnings, means that there is further pent-up demand this year in addition to the 2007 demand that has arisen due to normal population growth itself. If we follow the same logic, then a demand of around 30,000 to 35,000 units come into play this year which is not too far away from the deliveries that are being predicted for 2007. With many property owners having bought property as second homes and others having the luxury of holding on to their property in case of lower-than-expected rental yields, there will be unoccupied spaces contributing to lower and slower supply growth.

However, if the 139,000 units that the EFG Hermes report counted for scheduled delivery in 2008 do actually enter the market next year, the market will clearly be quickly saturated, and the correction predicted by the report and Standard Chartered Bank among others will be a reality by then.

The buyer demographic is seeing a definitive shift from the typical buy-to-let investor to the end-user segment. The recent spate of property launches and associated mortgage lending facilities and patterns are also a further indicator of this fact and have added to the comfort of the owner-occupier. With rentals and associated expenses in Dubai still showing no signs of cooling down, an increasing number of mid-end home buyers are entering into the market with increasing frequency.

For further information on the Dubai property market and the array of properties on offer visit gowealthy.com.