many surgery procedures performed in medical tourism destinations cost a fraction of the price they do in the first world. for example a liver transplant that costs 300,000 USD in america costs about 91,000 USD in taiwan. a large draw to medical travel is convenience and speed. countries that operate public health-care systema are often so taxed that it can take considerable time to get non-urgent medical care. using canada as an example, an estimated 782,936 canadians spent time on medical waiting lists in 2005, waiting an average of 9.4 weeks. canada has set waiting-time benchmarks, e. g. 26 weeks for a hip replacement and 16 weeks for cataract surgery, for non-urgent medical procedures.