Medical tourism to Gyeonggi Province from Central Asian nations including Kazakhstan doubles
Createdd 2016-08-18 Hit 433
Contents
Medical
tourism from Kazakhstan grows 95% while that of Uzbekistan grows by 145%
compared to the previous year
According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, 2,506
patients from Kazakhstan visited hospitals in Gyeonggi Province last year,
representing a 94.7% increase over the previous year when 1,287 patients from
Kazakhstan visited Gyeonggi Province. ⓒ Gyeonggi G-News
Interest in medical tourism to
Gyeonggi Province continues to rise among Central Asian nations including Kazakhstan.
According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, 2,506 patients from Kazakhstan
visited hospitals in Gyeonggi Province last year, representing a 94.7% increase
over the previous year when 1,287 patients from Kazakhstan visited Gyeonggi
Province.
This means that Kazakhstan, from
which initially only 28 patients visited Gyeonggi Province when the province began
developing its medical tourism industry in earnest, has now become the fourth
largest country in terms of visiting patients after China, the United States,
and Japan.
Uzbekistan, another Central
Asian nation, saw the number of patients visiting Gyeonggi Province grow from
12 in 2009 to 218 in 2014, and 543 in 2015, marking a year-on-year increase of 145%.
Gyeonggi Province views this increase
in medical tourism as the outcome of sustained interaction and exchange in
health and medicine with the Central Asian region. Central Asia was selected as
a strategic destination for medical tourism by Gyeonggi Province from 2009, and
has seen increasing exchange and cooperation with health authorities and
medical institutes.
One key policy item is a
training program for medical personnel through which doctors are invited from
Central Asian nations to hospitals in Gyeonggi Province to study medical
techniques.
It is significant that, among
the 375 doctors who studied medical techniques in hospitals of Gyeonggi Province,
166 doctors, the largest national contingent, came from Kazakhstan. The
increasing number of patients from Kazakhstan suggests that these doctors
helped generate more interest in medical tourism to Gyeonggi Province upon
returning home.
Additionally, relative to
other regions where cosmetic surgery was the most popular procedural area, the
fact that a large proportion of the visiting patients had been diagnosed with
serious illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurosurgical
diseases further supports this analysis.
The Medical Tourism Forum through
which Gyeonggi Province invites personnel from health authorities as well as
local medical tourism agencies to the province and helps them experience the Gyeonggi’s medical service
quality is another key project along with the invitational training project.
Of particular note, local
medical tourism agencies experience the services of Gyeonggi Province’s medical institutes
first-hand and return home to connect local patients with appropriate hospitals
in Gyeonggi Province. As such, they act as conduits that directly send medical
tourists to Gyeonggi Province.
With regards to this project,
Gyeonggi Province hosted the Korea-Central Asia Medical Tourism Forum in the
afternoon of July 21 at the Suwon Ramada Hotel for personnel from ten medical
tourism agencies of Central Asian nations including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and
Kyrgyzstan.
The participants will hold
business consultations with 11 medical institutes in Gyeonggi Province and sign
agreements to simulate medical tourism.
Also, prior to the forum, the
participants will receive medical checkups at the Catholic University of Korea
Bucheon St. Mary’s Hospital, the Catholic University of Korea St.
Vincent’s
Hospital, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Soonchunhyang University Hospital
Bucheon, Sejong General Hospital, and Wiltse Memorial Hospital (Suwon) and
experience cutting-edge medical technology.Gyeonggi Province Health &
Welfare Bureau Director General Bae Soo-yong said, “Central Asia has considerable
potential to become a ‘blue ocean’ for the medical business.” Bae added, “We’ll do our utmost to promote
the Korean Wave in the medical industry across the entire Central Asian region through
various international cooperation projects in medicine.”
