Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
participants in the program. In just two years, Malaysia attracted 400,000 medical tourists.
“Many of them came with cash in their suitcases,” Dr. Wong told me.
Following her detailed description of the top-flight medical care available, she showed
us a video of the country's tropical beaches, its modern resorts, the capital city of Kuala
Lumpur, with its sophisticated skyline and multiethnic enclaves. She even made a pitch
for Malaysian cuisine: Malay, Indian, Chinese, Eurasian and Portuguese. “We are the
ninth-most-visited country in the world,” she said. “And we are ranked as the fifty-first most
happy country.”
Afterward we ate lunch together, and I asked her why Malaysia was so aggressive about
promoting medical tourism, beach included. “It's the kind of overall economic develop-
ment we want,” she said. “We speak English, we have a high standard of medicine offering
real value at prices less than half what you would pay in the United States. And we have
five-star hotels at $150 a night. It is the perfect place to recover.”
Dr. Wong has her Ph.D. in national health insurance and resource allocation. She said
for Malaysia this “government initiative will accelerate our economic growth through tour-
ism and investment in health care.” If growth continues at this rapid pace, Malaysia be-
lieves it will attract 2 million medical tourists annually by 2020.
No one questioned why medical care should be incorporated into the tourism industry.
It is one of the most presumptuous of the new fields that tourism has decided is part of
its mandate. Although Dr. Meyers from Colorado did say he hated the term “medical
tourism,” it appears he has lost that battle. The conference was organized by the New
York-based company Wallcott Holdings, which envisions creating medical villages or
medical “zones” around the world to accommodate medical tourists with hospitals, hotels,
shopping, activities and entertainment.
An estimated one in four working-age Americans do not have health insurance, while
medical costs are rising. Dental insurance is even less common. The $2.6 trillion U.S.
health care system is the best in the world, but it is becoming one of the most expensive
and least accessible for the poor. The Centers for Disease Control said that 59 million
Americans went without medical insurance in 2010 and failed to receive treatment they
needed. With those figures, medical tourism is bound to rise even with the Obama re-
forms. While U.S. politicians argue over how best to reform the American health care sys-
tem, Americans are voting with their feet, or airplane tickets, and going overseas for treat-
ments they cannot afford in their own country. They are turning to their travel agent rather
than their family doctor.
Dr. Sevil Kutay of the local Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce & In-
dustry—Midwest lives in Chicago and sees Americans in need of health care. She atten-
ded the conference at the Flamingo in order to prod the Turkish government to do more
to promote its website:
www.medicaltourisminturkey.org
. “Why not promote medical tour-
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