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The uncertainties medical tourism poses for Asian economies

Medical tourism is rapidly growing in the East Asian countries of India, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. These destinations currently serve thousands of medical tourists from around the world and have some of the most renowned hospitals and healthcare facilities in the world for the same purpose.

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The success of these established medical tourism providers in East Asia have also increased the urge for other countries to promote their own medical tourism industries in order to join this group of large players.

Industry experts claim that doing so would enable these countries to attract foreign investment to the private health sector, thereby helping them retain existing health workforces in addition to ensuring that local health sectors can get access to state of the art technological advances and increasing training opportunities for several health workers. Considering all these, it would give the locals access to these high quality health care services at home itself.

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However, some predict that investing in medical tourism can lead to the potential draining of resources from the public health sectors in addition to diverting the attention away from the local population and their less profitable health needs.

In countries like Malaysia, the high paying private sector jobs in the medical tourism industry has caused much of the skilled workforce to move away from the public, less profitable sector.

Many medical personnel are also opting for jobs in urban areas, leaving rural areas derelict of necessary medical facilities and personnel. Locals in these areas would also not have access to the high-end equipment and services offered at private hospitals exclusively for rich medical tourists.

In India, an increase in the private health sector has been marked by a significant decrease in investments related to the public health sector. Promises of creating public-private partnerships that would help the public gain access to private facilities have also been left unrealized.

Another thing to ponder here is the projected economic benefits of medical tourism that are far from correct in most cases. With large regional players in the medical tourism industry having the power to sway governments in this region to gain monetary benefits, in terms of regulatory taxes, it can be said that economic growth in this sector can only be achieved by lowering the trade barriers of the industry.

Summary

No doubt, medical tourism is competitive industry with scope for growth. However, new players in the field need to realize that this growth would not be instantaneous. They would need to realize that the economic benefits might not materialize in case tax concessions do not match by the returns. With stakeholders exaggerating the figures and market potential of the industry greatly, one would need to be extremely cautious when stepping into this field.

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