IMTJadmin - 07/03/2008 13:13
The medical travel industry faces a number of challenges: clinical standards of excellence (and related to this, international accreditation), insurance issues, liability, promotion of services and best practice, regulating medical travel agents and consultants and so on. Yet it is clear that for all these challenges, there are certain irresistible pressures which are pushing things forward: lengthy waiting times in some countries, pressure on resources and the ease with which mobile patients can seek out a centre of excellence elsewhere to receive the treatment they desire or need.
It's clear that these medical travellers are for the most part desirable to the countries to which they travel (there are exceptions, of course, and we've written about those in our news section online at www.imtjonline.com). Yet ask tourist boards about their position on medical tourism, rather than encouraging such visits with a few notable exceptions, you'll find there's a very long silence, and then, 'No Comment'.
Why is this? Well off the record, they'll tell you that it's because the industry is unregulated, that they can't see a way it can be regulated, and while they recognise that medical tourism is bringing people to their country, it isn't something they particularly want to promote. That's the ones that will speak to you about the subject at all. Most won't. So while it's fine for a traveller to parachute, white water raft, rock climb or bungee jump from a suspension bridge into a rocky canyon, don't for a minute expect any help or guidance from that government funded organisation if you want a simple medical procedure. You won't get it. They know it is going on, but they are ignoring it for now.
How frustrating.
