Overview of the Medical Tourism industry

Overview of the Medical Tourism industry
Many developing countries don’t have proper healthcare treatment. They are unable to carry out
severe operations and surgeries. That’s the reason patients travel to other cities or countries to
resolve problems related to healthcare. Health tourism has immense possibilities and success
rates. Many people travel to find better, affordable, and hassle-free healthcare services in other
parts of the world.

What is Medical Tourism?
Medical tourism refers to travel where tourists travel from one country to another for health
treatment purposes. Typically, when people travel from one place to another, then that is for
entertainment purposes. Still, this trip aims to cure some diseases, take up therapies, or for
rehabilitation purposes. Hence, it is considered medical tourism.
People come from various places to a specific country to have good nursing care, doctors,
therapies, and medication that solves their health problems.
Pollard, International Medical Tourism Journal in 2011 defined a medical tourist as, “A medical
tourist is someone who travels outside of his or her own country for surgery or elective
treatment of a medical condition.”
History of Medical Tourism
The Medical Tourism industry began its set of experiences during the 1930s. It became
mainstream among the USA and European nation’s well-off inhabitants, who needed excellent
quality wellbeing services abroad. Since 1983, maintaining good health has been consumers’ first
concern, and, as indicated by the Future Foundation’s Changing Lives Survey, it will continue to
be the same way in the future.

Types of Medical Tourism
People going for clinical consideration because of moderateness, better admittance to mind, or a
more elevated level of nature of care is called International Medical Tourism.
International Medical tourism is further divided into two types:
1. When people come from other countries to a country, then this is known as inbound
medical tourism.
2. When people go out of a country from their origin to other countries, this is called
outbound tourism.
Individuals who live in one nation and travel to another city, area, or state to get clinical, dental,
and careful consideration while simultaneously getting equivalent to or more prominent
consideration than they would have in their home city is known as Domestic Medical Tourism.
Benefits of Medical Tourism
Medical
Tourism contributes massively to the tourism sector. Many people travel from
less-developed healthcare countries to developed healthcare countries. This increases travel and
contributes to the country’s economy. It creates healthcare-related jobs and facilities,
incorporating the latest technology, participation in global healthcare, socio-political, and

economic benefits, participation in global healthcare and increased global healthcare standards,
and improves the quality of life.
Reasons to Choose Healthcare Services Abroad
Medical tourism has become popular in post-pandemic times. It has been proving an effective
way of availing excellent healthcare services if good services and care are not available in your
area or country. People consider traveling abroad either for leisure or for treatment purposes.
Following are some of the reasons why people travel abroad for medical purposes:
1. They are disappointed with the current treatment in their origin country. They are not
satisfied with the treatment, and the problem is not sorted out.
2. The treatment can be time-consuming.
3. The treatment can cost a lot of money as there are fewer doctors available in that area.
4. To practice greater mobility.
5. To have a zest for traveling the world.
6. Unlike local treatment, there is no waiting list.
7. High tech technology is used with high accuracy, speed, and success rate.
8. Because of the growing popularity of medical services abroad.
9. Also, to escape from the current country.
Drawbacks of Medical Tourism
Though medical tourism can be a good solution for advanced healthcare treatments, it also
possesses various issues and challenges. Some of them are as follows:

Follow-up Problems – follow up care is extremely challenging in the clinical and travel industry.
If a patient gets a disease or different issues after a medical procedure after returning to his own
country, then, at that point, there aren’t any grounded follow-up cares in medical tourism.
●
Language Barrier
Cultural and language obstructions are a significant issue before the clinical travel industry.
Assuming the clinical staff doesn’t comprehend the patients’ language, the entire cycle becomes
hard.
●
Lack of Infrastructure
People are going from one country to another developing country for clinical treatment. These
developing countries do not have well-established and advanced infrastructure. There are
numerous issues like appropriate water and power supply, low-quality food, and an unclean
hospital environment.
●
Lack of Professionalism
The clinical staff in most developing nations need polished communication skills. The soft
abilities of the medical workforce like warmth, concern, and amiability are yet to develop in the
staff. The staff may be rude and arrogant to the patients. This costs the country its reputation.

●
Difficulties in Promotion
The developing nations are experiencing the issues of advancement in medical tourism. There is
an absence of value accreditation and guidelines in emergency clinics and other medical service
providers. There is no uniform evaluation and normalization of administration, which creates a
boundary in building client’s confidence in the offered services.
●
Rules and Regulations
One of the genuine worries in medical tourism is identified with contrasts in law in various
nations. There is no standard law in the medical tourism industry all around the globe.
●
Organ Trafficking
Most of the world restricts transplant tourism since organs regularly come from weak
individuals. Nonetheless, organs can, in any case, be bought on the black market. Sometimes the
cost of organ transplantation could be too high.
Apart from the drawbacks, health tourism upholds a great future. The more developed the health
care system in a country, the more it will improve people’s lives. Countries like Dubai, UK, India,
Japan, Spain, Singapore, and Canada are some of the healthcare tourism destinations in the
world.

As indicated by the Medical Tourism Index, which assesses the appeal of nations for clinical
travel, a nation’s economy and public picture, medical care expenses, and nature of care are the
central points that drive the clinical medical industry development in an objective.
Source.