Health as a result of policies implemented worldwide; It has taken its place among the most emphasized global market areas in terms of commercial, social, cultural and political aspects and has increased its importance as an area with high returns within the free market economy. Medical tourism, in other words medical tourism or travel for the purpose of receiving health care, is a phenomenon that has emerged more prominently recently. The basic desire and expectation of all people, regardless of country, social class, ethnic origin, religious belief, is to receive quality health services in a safe environment, even if the geographical region and/or socio-cultural environment they live in have created different wishes and expectations. . Health tourism; In short, it is the visit of individuals to a country other than their country of residence in order to receive both preventive, curative, rehabilitative and health-promoting services. Medical tourism, on the other hand, is a purely medical definition and includes cross-border mobility “for therapeutic purposes”. In other words, from the point of view of the service provider, medical tourism; It is the whole of the services offered in order to improve the deteriorated health of the individual.
While people used to go abroad for surgeries that were not covered by the reimbursement institutions or insurance companies of which they were members, today, they go abroad for a wide range of procedures from eye surgeries, heart surgeries, hip/knee prosthesis, cancer surgery and even organ transplants. . In developed countries, the treatment is too expensive, there are long waiting lines, the health costs are not covered by insurance or only a small part of it is covered by insurance, and in underdeveloped countries, the lack of facilities and facilities in their own country is the reason why health services are more expensive than those that offer lower cost or higher quality services. supply is increasing.
Health tourism includes special health care services including medical care, special diets, acupuncture and herbal treatment, provided by specialist doctors, nurses and other health personnel (such as physiotherapists, dialysis technicians, audiotherapists). It is known that since prehistoric times, people have traditionally traveled for purposes such as conquest, war, exploration, vacation, recreation, entertainment and culture, as well as for health purposes. It can be said that thermal springs pioneered the beginning of health tourism movements, thanks to the widespread use of hot springs among the people in the 18th century in Europe. In the 19th century, therapeutic tourism movements were seen in distant colonies and tropical climate regions.
The movement of patients, which occurs when people go to overseas countries for any reason and perform medical treatment or operations in these countries, is defined as medical tourism. Medical tourism has emerged as a small but important market with the rapid increase in people’s overseas travel for medical purposes and is developing rapidly around the world. Especially people who have to endure long waiting times for treatment or operation, as well as high treatment costs in their own countries, are increasingly participating in these travels. The costs of the treatments provide cost savings of 30%, 40% and even up to 60% in some cases, depending on the country where the patients are located.The most important factors in the development of medical tourism are low treatment costs and short waiting times. In addition to these, factors such as developing medical technology, low transportation costs and social media and unlimited marketing make it easier for patients to receive health services in hospitals outside the country where they live.
Today, south and southeast Asian countries dominate the medical tourism market, but many countries also take a share from the market. It is expected that the economic size of health tourism in the world will reach 150 billion dollars by the end of 2015. While the demand in the medical tourism market is concentrated in three regions as North America, Western Europe and the Middle East, in terms of the distribution of demand in these regions to destinations; Favorite countries for European medical visitors are India, Malaysia and Thailand. Malaysia also dominates the Middle East market due to its Islamic reference. Singapore is the main destination for the Japanese market. Costa Rica, Colombia and Cuba naturally gravitate towards the Central American market. Mexico, on the other hand, receives almost all patients from neighboring states in the USA, such as California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The countries that patients from Australia visit most frequently for treatment purposes are Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The most important region in the world for medical tourism is undoubtedly the Asian continent at the moment. The region attracts at least 2 million medical tourism patients annually. The scope of this activity has reached surprising dimensions in countries such as India, Singapore and especially Thailand. When the medical tourism movements in Thailand started with the gender reassignment operations in the 70s, the size of the health tourism as a country was noticed, and in the following years, the focus was on aesthetic surgery. Data on cross-border movements for health tourism purposes vary greatly. This variability is due to the difficulty of separating the data (patients and/or their relatives), the absence of any regular statistical format that distinguishes visitors for medical tourism purposes, and the fact that the concept of medical tourism differs from country to country. For example, when a patient goes to a country for hair transplantation with his/her spouse and child to stay with them for 5 days after the procedure, some countries consider all their expenditures within the scope of health tourism, since the reason for this family’s visit is to receive health services, while some countries consider only the amount paid for health services as health tourism. show as income.
Almost all statistical advertisements about medical tourism emphasize the relationship between surgery and tourism. The opinions emphasizing that it is necessary to question the extent to which the patients benefit from the natural elements of tourism, especially during the post-operative convalescence or rehabilitation periods, outweigh. Integration of medical tourism, especially with holiday and recreational tourism, can provide a regional attraction for medical visitors. In the health tourism sector; transportation (especially airline) sector, tourism industry and hospital chains are in a sense integrated. Raffles Hospitals Group, based in Singapore, organizes activities such as airport transfers, hotel reservations and local tours within its group. Hotels in Malaysia have similarly entered into vertical integration with hospitals. In this way, with the aim of opening the hospital beds for new patients, thanks to the hotel-hospital integration, the transfer of the patients to the hotels with medical staff is provided for the care of the patients in the early postoperative period. Traditional tourism is definitely integrated with medical tourism, and touristic activities gain importance in patients’ choice of hospital or country. All elements of the tourism industry (travel agencies, airlines, hotels, etc.) can benefit from this market. In terms of countries with outpatients, it is known that approximately 50,000 people from England traveled overseas in 2003 to receive health care. In terms of destinations, Thailand claims to have attracted 1 million tourists from Japan in 2006 and says that this figure has increased by 20% until 2008. Singapore reports that it hosted around 800,000 overseas patients in 2005, but there is no reliable data to document these. In terms of hospital records, it was reported that 247,238 Japanese, 118,701 American, 95,941 British and 35,902 Australian patients were treated in Thai hospitals in 2004. Health tourism mobility is shown in Figure 1. The fact that English is the main language in a country makes very important contributions to the development of medical tourism. The Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok has over 100 translators and over 200 certified surgeons from the UK or USA.
