[News Article] Medical Tourism

Bolder Steps Needed to Attract More Foreign Patients
South Korea has set a new aim of emerging as an Asian medical hub by taking advantage of international competitiveness in health care services. For this, the nation has revised the medical services law, allowing local hospitals to engage in marketing activities more freely to attract foreign patients.

Medical tourism has become a catchphrase for the realization the new goal. It is also part of the country's efforts to upgrade the medical industry and help create world-class hospitals. Medical tourism is seen as one of the nation's new growth engines because it can not only promote tourism but also foster the health care sector. It is also expected to contribute to the development of the services industry that has been put on the back burner.

Particularly when it is taking the brunt of the unprecedented global financial and economic crisis, South Korea needs to reduce its excessive reliance on exports of manufactured goods for economic growth. Therefore, medical tourism is attractive in that it can help the country earn more hard currency and cut the snowballing services trade deficit.

The government has started to implement various support measures to promote medical tourism. Starting from May 11, foreigners are allowed to get new visas to get medical treatment here. The foreign medical tourist visa made its debut as local hospitals and institutes requested the simplification of the issuance process for those seeking treatment in Korea.

We hope the new visa will contribute to Korea attracting a greater number of foreign patients. But the nation will have to do more things to promote medical tourism, which is still at an incipient stage in South Korea. In fact, the nation is far behind its Asian rivals in this field. Thailand is now Asia's largest destination for medical tourism. It attracted 1.54 million medical tourists in 2007, followed by Singapore with 460,000. Only 16,000 visited South Korea.

This shows that Korea has to solve many problems, including the lack of marketing activities, restrictions on advertisements, poor tourism infrastructure and a communication barrier. In addition, the nation should set up a mechanism for the settlement of medical malpractice, as many foreign tourists are concerned about such potential disputes.

Medical tourism is certainly a valuable service industry. But its promotion is easier said than done. Therefore, the government, the medical services sector and the tourism industry are required to step up cooperation to turn the nation into a center for medical tourists.



Articles from Koreatimes Newspaper.



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