Friday, August 15, 2014

Medical Tourism: The main destination countries

In recent years, the phenomenon of medical tourism is to seek treatment in a foreign country at lower cost, has spread globally. From South America to Asia to Central Europe and North Africa, many so-called emerging countries that have embarked on this highly lucrative sector. Some official figures, nearly 3 million tourists, mainly from rich countries, and make every year in these countries to get the care and high-end medical procedures ranging from teeth whitening to cosmetic surgery, passing by a hip replacement, etc. According to some projections, this figure could be around 20 million by 2015.

Countries receiving medical tourists are many and varied, they are not confined to a single continent. The most preferred and sought after in this niche destinations are India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for Asia but also Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, and finally South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt for Africa. For example, India, which already enjoyed for many years with an excellent reputation for surgery in this area of ​​medical tourism, has become increasingly sought. According to Deloitte, one of the largest audit and advisory firms in the world in 2007-2008, 450,000 foreign parties would benefit Indian health care. Thus, hospitals in this country have seen since 2008, the number of followers of this tourism "new generation" significantly increase, representing an annual growth rate of around 30%. Similarly, Thailand has recorded, in 2006, more than 1.45 million tourists came to seek dental care or benefit from surgery, which allowed the Thai tourism to overcome somehow in the aftermath of the crisis December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Following the success of this, these countries have decided to invest heavily in building, among others, large and sophisticated tech hospitals with many restaurants, shops and services. Thus, Bumrungrad International Hospital, established in 1980 is now considered the largest private hospital in Southeast Asia. Located in the heart of Bangkok, the Thai capital, this multi-specialty institution internationally recognized for its high quality care, is one of those hospitals that offer their international customers many services including a travel agency dedicated to the extension of stays and extension of visas for patients who need a longer than expected or would simply like to continue their stay recovery.

These destination countries are generally selected based on treatments. Thus, Asian countries such as Thailand, India and Malaysia, mainly offer general medical care but also and especially cardiac care and orthopedic surgery. These same services are also offered by South Africa, Cuba, Colombia, Hungary, Lithuania, etc. For cosmetic surgery, many Latin American countries are on the list. This is Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico. However, among them, some have chosen their specialty dental surgery or ophthalmology. In Asia, countries such as Thailand and India have chosen to specialize in organ transplants, cardiology and open heart surgery. Overall, the most stressed by these international patients specialties are comfort care and cosmetic treatment even if the application of serious diseases such as orthopedics, cardiology or oncology is becoming widespread. Finally, it should be noted that the choice of destinations is also strongly influenced by the language spoken in the country.

source: http://www.afriqueexpansion.com/

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