PHP11 AN INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH TOURISM AND MEDICAL TOURISM

TOURISM MARKETING IN AN ERA OF PARADIGM SHIFT Introduction Tourism

Regulating medical tourism.

We were interested to read Priya Shetty’s World Report examining the booming medical tourism industry in India (Aug 28, p 671). The Lancet is to be commended for bringing attention to this issue. It is of the utmost importance that trends in medical tourism be watched closely given the implications for patients’ health and safety and for health systems more broadly. Shetty places significant fo...

Medical tourism: crossing borders to access health care.

Traveling abroad for one's health has a long history for the upper social classes who sought spas, mineral baths, innovative therapies, and the fair climate of the Mediterranean as destinations to improve their health. The newest trend in the first decade of the twenty-first century has the middle class traveling from developed countries to those with emerging economies to avoid treatment delay...

Medical tourism: Outsourcing surgery

A trend emerging in recent years has been travel from industrialized nations to developing countries such as India and Thailand for purposes of undergoing medical procedures, a phenomenon we call medical tourism. Medical tourism offers the prospect of greatly reduced expenses for health care as well as other advantages such as reduced waiting times, but there are risks associated with seeking h...

Medical tourism and organ trafficking

The growth of medical tourism in developing nations has not only helped the local economies but also has assisted patients from the developed world to seek treatment at a lower cost. However, the expansion of the sector has been stigmatized by the growth of organ trafficking that facilitates organ transplantation to those who can afford it. Although developing countries have been taking measure...