As everything has two sides – a dark and a bright, medical tourism is no different from others. Though medical tourism offers a lot of benefits to the foreign patients, it might hamper the native citizens of the countries that offer medical tourism. Medical tourism is usually offered by developing countries. There are many people under the poverty line in the developing countries and they require medical assistance at every moment of their lives, whether it is a child birth or a dreadful disease. They are not wealthy enough to pay for the medical expenses and it results in loss of many lives.
The hospitals and the health care sector is concentrating more on medical tourism as it gives them more revenue to strengthen their economical stature. They provide the medical tourists with all the facilities on a priority basis and at the same time they ignore their own citizens as they are not able to pay the bills.
Though the countries that offer medical tourism has flourished as far as business and economy are concerned, they are lagging behind when it comes to providing health care to their own citizens. The wealthy foreign patients from UK and US easily avail relatively low-cost surgeries and treatment in these countries at the cost of the treatment requirement of the native residents of these countries.
The wealthy and influential natives of those countries offering medical tourism have also completely forgot the government aided hospitals and they avail the healthcare services from the private hospitals as they believe they can get the world class healthcare from those private hospitals.
These private hospital owners receive a good tax break and they purchase land from the government at subsidized rates to perform charitable work though they concentrate on making money from the foreigners neglecting the natives.
The medical tourism industry also violates many legal ethics in medical and scientific research. The most prolific example is the stem cell therapy. Though stem cell therapy has been banned in US, it is available in the countries offering medical tourism. The patients are flying to avail these therapies from around the globe but they are not sure about the benefits it offers. However, the risks involved in the stem cell therapy are made quite clear by the doctors.
The globalization of medical tourism has of course few negative impacts on the healthcare sectors all around the world though it provides few good facilities to cherish. There should be a proper regulatory system to manage the medical tourism organizations so that they could not take undue advantages from government to make money.
