Medical Tourism

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Get the best medical facilities in the most exotic countries of the world. We organize every thing from you from the selection of the hospital to Air travel hotels, doctor appointments and every thing else.

What is Medical Tourism : Medical tourism is relatively a new concept in the world. In history people have always travelled to different countries of the world for better medical facilities. However only in the recent times the term medical tourism has been used in the travel industry. Although it is becoming very popular but there are not many companies in the travel trade who offer such services in Pakistan. In fact Travel & Culture Services is the only company that offer this service so far.

Medical touris of health tourism is defined as a service offered by tour companies whereby the tour company organizes the travel of the patient and accompanying attendants to travel to host country, book accommodation, book hospital appointments and complete treatment, later on rehabilitation and a leisure activity is also organized optionally.

Why should one go with a tour company? In today hi-tech world there is magnitude of information available over the internet so one does ask why should I use a tour company when i can possibly find a hospital for me my self over the internet. Well the term find out seems easy but practically when you do try to find out its not that easy in fact it becomes next to impossible to find the appropriate hospital and even if one does find the hospital he/she does not know how would be the experience in that place. Tour company on the other hand has experience of dealing with the hospitals, They have permanent contract with the hospitals and other host travel companies in the country hence the planning is fast easy and result is usually accomplished in a lot more hassle free environment.

How does it work? The typical process is as follows: the person seeking medical treatment abroad contacts a medical tourism provider. The provider usually requires the patient to provide a medical report, including the nature of ailment, local doctor’s opinion, medical history, and diagnosis, and may request additional information. Certified medical doctors or consultants then advise on the medical treatment. The approximate expenditure, choice of hospitals and tourist destinations, and duration of stay, etc., is discussed. After signing consent bonds and agreements, the patient is given recommendation letters for a medical visa, to be procured from the concerned embassy. The patient travels to the destination country, where the medical tourism provider assigns a case executive, who takes care of the patient's accommodation, treatment and any other form of care. Once the treatment is done, the patient can remain in the tourist destination or return home.

Some of the destinations and treatments are

Medical Treatment London & UK

London is possibly the most sought after destination for medical treatment in Pakistan.

Medical Treatment Germany

Germany has long been a medical tourism destination for people from the Middle East and North Africa. Now with a reduction in tension between East and West, many Russians and other Eastern Europeans are seeking treatment in Germany. British and Canadians, no longer willing to wait for treatment in their home country, are also traveling to Germany for treatment. Americans are also heading to Germany for the latest in spine surgery and novel cancer treatments and much lower prices than they would pay in the US. German hospitals and doctors practice many highly sought after procedures not yet done in the US, Canada, and the UK such as, artificial disc replacement, hyperthermia and more

Medical Treatment Italy

Medical Treatment Thailand

Medical tourism is a growing segment of Thailand's tourism and health-care sectors. In 2005, one Bangkok hospital took in 150,000 treatment seekers from abroad. In 2006, medical tourism was projected to earn the country 36.4 billion baht.

Treatments for medical tourists in Thailand range from cosmetic, organ transplants and orthopaedic treatments to dental and cardiac surgeries. Treatments also include spa, physical and mental therapies. Thailand offers everything from cardiac surgery to organ transplants at a price much lower than the US or Europe. Thai medicine also features a higher, more personalized level of nursing care than westerners are accustomed to receiving in hospitals at home. One patient who received a coronary artery bypass surgery at Bumrungrad International hospital in Bangkok said the operation cost him US$12,000 (8,200 euros), as opposed to the $100,000 (68,000 euros) he estimated the operation would have cost him at home.[69] Bumrungrad treated approximately 55,000 American patients in 2005 alone, a 30% increase from the previous year.

Hospitals in Thailand are a popular destination for other Asians. Bangkok Hospital, which caters to medical tourists, has a Japanese wing, and Phyathai Hospitals Group has interpreters for over 22 languages, besides the English-speaking medical staff. When Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala needed medical care in 2006, he went to Bangkok.

Today many Thai physicians hold US or UK professional certification. Several Thai hospitals have relationships with educational facilities in the US and UK (for example, Sheffield Hallam University has links with Bangkok}. One Thai hospital, Bumrungrad International, states that many of its doctors and staff are trained in the UK, Europe and the US. Bumrungrad International was accredited most recently in 2005 by an American group in order to ensure an international standard of medical services.[72] Some of the country’s major hospitals also have achieved other accreditations, and some have achieved certification by the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 9001:2000 (However, ISO not an accreditation scheme).

The US consular information sheet gives the Thai health care system high marks for quality, particularly facilities in Bangkok, although the World Health Organization ranks the Thai healthcare system at number 47, below the USA's ranking at 37 and the United Kingdom's ranking at 18. The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office web site states "There are excellent international hospitals in Bangkok but they can be expensive".

Medical Treatment in Singapore

Singapore has a dozen hospitals and health centers with JCI accreditation.[64] In 2000, The World Health Organization ranked Singapore's health care system sixth best in the world, the highest ranked system in Asia.

"SingaporeMedicine" is a multi-agency government-industry partnership committed to strengthening Singapore's position as a medical hub and promoting Singapore as a destination for advanced patient care. Patients come from neighboring countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, and patient numbers from Indochina, South Asia, the Middle East and Greater China are growing. Patients from developed countries such as the United States and the UK are also beginning to choose Singapore as their medical travel destination for relatively affordable health care services in a clean cosmopolitan city.

Medical Treatment Malaysia

Medical Treatment in Taiwan

The Taiwanese government has declared its determination for the country to become a medical tourism center. To encourage the development of medical tourism, the Council for Economic Planning and Development, together with the Department of Health, proposed the “Medical Service Internationalization Flagship Program”. It is estimated that the government will contribute NT$44.4 million to construct a platform for the collaboration of the government and the medical sector in promoting medical tourism.[67]

Taiwan was the first Asian country to perform liver transplant surgery successfully and is one of the top five liver transplant centers in Asia. The survival rate is the highest in the world. Taiwan also has one of the three largest bone marrow donor databases in Asia and has several successful cases of international matching. In addition, Taiwan has won a key position in the field of reconstructive and plastic surgery.

Costs for procedures remain comparatively low. For example, the charge for assisted reproduction in Taiwan is about one-tenth of that in the US, and the surgery fee for liver transplant is about one-sixth that in the US. The surgery fee for hip joint replacement is even lower than in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Charges for other medical treatments in Taiwan, such as laser eye surgery, health examination, cancer screening, cosmetic surgery and dental treatment, are also competitive
 

Hong Kong

Hong Kong has 12 private hospitals and 39 public hospitals in 2006, providing 3124 and 27755 beds respectively. A wide range of health care services are offered. All 12 of Hong Kong's private hospitals have been surveyed and accredited by the UK's Trent Accreditation Scheme since early 2001.^[51] This has been a major factor in the ascent of standards in Hong Kong's private hospitals. The Trent scheme works closely with the hospitals it assesses to generate standards appropriate to the locality (with respect to culture, geography, public health, primary care interfaces etc.), and always uses combinations of UK-sourced and Hong Kong-sourced surveyors. Some of Hong Kong's private hospitals have now gone on to obtain dual international accreditation, with both Trent and JCI (and have therefore attained a standard surpassing some of the best hospitals in Thailand and Singapore). Others are looking towards dual international accreditation with Trent and the Australian group. Hong Kong public hospitals have yet to commit to external accreditation.