Medical tourism: Are health practitioners for it?

Undeniably, tourism is huge.  In fact, countries like Morocco, Egypt, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and tiny island nations like Fiji are largely dependent on it.  With the huge intake of money for businesses, it cuts across many industries.  Consequently, it offers a lot of employment opportunities.  Thus, uniquely blessed with at least 7,100 islands, we aren't letting this opportunity pass our way unnoticed.  To this administration's credit, this is one industry we really are trying to develop to the max. 

Indeed, there is too much hype nowadays of the country's tourism investment potentials and places of interest for opportunity-seeking business travelers and leisure lovers, respectively.  Promotions and campaigns are appropriately made both here and abroad. Apart from these usual sights and traditional activities, we, in Cebu, are also starting to position ourselves as having the capabilities for medical tourism. 

Yes, it is true that medical tourism is growing rapidly.  However, there are many factors that led to the increasing prominence of medical travel.  Principally, the reasons run from high cost of their countries' health care to longer waiting times for certain treatments or procedures.  Coupled with the ease and affordability of international travel and the vastly improved technology and health care standards in other countries, medical travel has been viewed as truly the sunny side of tourism. 

Medical tourists are coming from anywhere in the globe.  They are coming from the wealthy nations in Europe, Middle East, Japan, the United States and Canada.  These are countries with relatively large moneyed populations and have high cost of health care.   However, just because there is a huge market is not enough reason for us to join the bandwagon.  A huge potential market doesn't assure us of success.  This potential market is knowledgeable enough to know where to get treatment.  Without doing an honest assessment of our real worth or capabilities, we will only end up salivating while staring at a huge market that we can't tap.

While we are too optimistic about its prospects due to our relative success in traditional tourism, it seems that we did not realize that medical tourism is totally different from the rest.  Mindfully, it is not a tour or travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes but out of necessity.  It is not a kind tourism where even a commercial sex worker can get involve.  It needs huge investments in hospital equipment and the best in our already depleted number of health practitioners.

Investments in hospital equipment may not be at all a problem.  For one, the Board of Investments has included in its Investment Priority Plan hospital-related activities for income tax holiday and import related taxes and duties exemption.  Moreover, state-owned financial institutions are offering loans to health-related projects such as hospitals. 

Obviously, therefore, the real issue right now is on our health practitioners.  Today, it seems that, due to the health practitioners' exodus, majority of those who stayed behind are undesirables.  For emphasis, in April, 2008, our health practitioners were in the bad light because of Janjan's (in that controversial "Black Suede Scandal") brief albeit unfortunate saga at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.  Then, just a few years after that incident, the doctors hugged the headlines with their very infamous "hospital holiday threat".   It wasn't an empty threat.  They were up in arms against the cheap medicine bill which only requires drugs' generic names in the prescription pad. 

Recently, another bad incident involving a health practitioner (a nurse) glossed the front page of The Freeman.  Posted on Facebook,a concerned father "showed a photo of her seven-day old baby whose lips were sealed with a tape while in a nursery at a private hospital in Cebu City".  Allegedly, "he and his wife found out that it was a nurse who taped the baby's lips because the child was reportedly noisy".  Inarguably, that was the most ridiculous patient care solution we've ever heard that is offered by a registered or professional nurse in silencing a "noisy" week-old child.

Considering the strength and extent of this social medium (the Facebook), the world and the would-be medical tourists are already aware of it and the other incidents involving health practitioners by now. Whatever consequences such ill-advised deeds may bring to themedical tourism industry, only God knows.  For the time being, let us savor ourselves to our hearts' content the usual drama inimitable incident such as this brings. 

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