Increasingly, many tourists travel long distances not to sightsee but for a bigger purpose. Medical tourism is currently a growing business across the world, with millions of patients seeking cheaper healthcare services in different countries. From cosmetic surgery in Thailand to orthopedic surgeries in Turkey, it’s clear that more patients are seeking operations in countries with lower prices compared to those of their countries of origin. This may initially seem like a win-win situation, with patients saving money and the destination countries receiving additional money from tourism. Yet, there’s an ethical, economic, and social issue found beneath this apparently beneficial transaction.
As the stream of wealthy foreign patients floods in, medical professionals in developing countries are increasingly more interested in profitability over accessibility. The hospitals serving western clients are also prone to spending a lot of money on modernized facilities, individual rooms, and employing English-speaking staff members to live up to the expectations of their clients. Such investments may boost the level of care, but they move resources such as skilled medical professionals and equipment out of the public sector. Due to this fact, local patients can regularly face long queues, decreased access, and increased spending on health care. Such a framework in these medical tourism countries has further widened the gap between the wealthy and those who have to depend on government departments.
On top of this, medical tourism can shift the healthcare priorities in a nation. When governments realize the financial and economic potential of these foreign patients, they often offer tax exemptions to the private hospitals providing care to foreign patients instead of renovating rural or under-funded health facilities. The shift undermines the equality that many health systems of the state are striving to achieve. It also raises a huge ethical question: Should the needs of international patients overshadow the needs of host citizens?
Another significant issue is the potential complications after treatment. Many medical tourists go home after surgery and abandon the continued treatment process. Subsequent treatments, complications, or infections are left on the shoulders of local health systems within home countries that may not have access to all of the patient’s medical records. With this, it adds a new strain on the health facilities in the host countries to scramble and attempt to help prevent any further complications.
Ultimately, medical tourism opens up a tough question on how globalization has resulted in the accessibility of healthcare to some at the expense of others not being equitably served. The potential failure of local medical care needs to be avoided, and to do so, there must be some international guidelines to bring equality to everyone. With no policies established, the pursuit of cheaper therapy in other countries may continue to be a source of healthcare disparities.
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