One of the issues in being involved in an unregulated global industry is the untruths and exaggerations that abound. While they possibly exist in many areas, medical or otherwise, the number of medical patients travelling overseas illustrates the struggle of indiviudal countries wanting recognition.

A much used quote is that in any war the first casualty is the truth seems to hold true as these countries fight for recognition and legitimacy.  The Lemmings Theory seems to be that by overstating the number of patient travellers to your facility you some how encourage more patients to visit. The more lemmings you say you treat , the more lemmings will follow.

A recent article Medical tourism statistics.Comparing Apples with apples…. hightlighted this by illustrating how some  hospitals count their  patients. It seems in some countries who indicate large numbers of medical tourists, the hospital administrators count each event as a separate patient. hence having an xray is one, the actual operation is two etc. This ends up with one patient having undergone a routine inpatient procedure as having been recorded as 15 patient episodes and (for sake of brevity) this is further shortened by marketing  to 15 patients.

Even well known global consultant agencies seem to fall for the same trick. Deloitte for example published a report in 2008- Medical tourism conumers in search of value, we hear that 400,000 medical tourists went to India and over 1.2 million medical tourists went to Thailand. Unbelivable numbers that appear, well…. unbelievable.

Until therefore there is a global agency such as the WHO that can verify overseas medical tourists numbers, patients contemplating travelling overseas for medical care should do their own research. If you want developed first world and English speaking then your choice is UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. If you want cheap well thats another story. Although there does seem to be a connection between the claim of very large  numbers of medical travelling patients and the third world. While it may be true that they treat many regional Asian patients, the actual number of North Americans who travel to Asia (or indeed anywhere else) for medical treatment , is yet to be verified.

Related posts:

1. What will make Medical Tourism grow?

Philip Wrights recent article in the Verde Independent explains the experience of Ben Wordinger, a self insured man from Arizona, and the difficulty he had accessing medical care in the USA.

This shows one of many drivers behind people accessing Medical Tourism out of the USA.

Of interesting note is his comment on his preference for an English speaking destination. When accessing medical care overseas many people find that cultural similarities such as this are an important factor in their decision on a destination.

Related posts:

1. 10 Handy Tips for Hip Replacement Surgery Overseas
2. What will make Medical Tourism grow?