Sydøstasien har haft en hurtig vækst i medicinsk turisme med op mod to millioner internationale patienter hvert år. Men den har ledt til en skævvridning af sundhedssystemerne, advarer WHO.
BANGKOK, 31 January 2011 (IRIN): Churnrurtai Kanchanachitra, a professor at Thailand’s Mahidol University and co-author of a recent paper on health worker shortages and the international trade in health services, warned of the dangers:
“There are five countries [in Southeast Asia] facing a shortage of health professionals, mostly in rural areas,” said Kanchanachitra. “This will only become a more pressing issue with the continued growth in trade in health services.”
Thailand reported US$1.4 billion in revenues from medical tourists in 2008 – about 30 percent from medical procedures and 50 percent from shopping. The national tourism authority has projected attracting 10 million medical tourists by 2015.
Over the past decade the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has gradually liberalized trade in services, with health as one of the 11 priority areas. In 2001 member countries started negotiating mutual recognition arrangements to facilitate the migration of professionals, with the expectation that health workers could migrate easily by 2010.
The US-based trade group Medical Tourism Association estimates the value of global medical tourism will increase to $100 billion in 2012.
In total , Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are short of nearly 250,000 health professionals to meet WHO minimum standards of care (covering 80 percent of births and measles immunizations), based on country data.
