China is a country of rich traditions and thriving capitalism, a vast and varied landscape that covers 7 time zones, wide-ranging economic and social developments for rich and poor, and the Yin and Yang of medical tourism with some patients coming, and some going.
Many of China’s nouveau riche are luxury travelers who head overseas for high-end healthcare in affluent locations.
They are going to Western Europe for luxury hotel stays, shopping sprees, and expensive procedures like stem cell treatments, spa therapy, and detoxification programs.
The “other side of the coin” is the effort the Chinese government is making to promote the country as a world-class medical tourism destination in its own right.
A big push is underway to grasp their share of the lucrative and growing healthcare travel market, one in which 6-M patients go abroad for treatment each year to the tune of an estimated US$100-B.
In Y 2013, a big portion of these travelers headed to Asian medical tourism hot spots like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, so why should China not be part of that huge business.
The answer is that it can, as the powers in Shanghai, Beijing, and several other locations understand very well.
The Chinese are selling patients all over the world on the country’s modern hospitals and technology, English-speaking doctors and surgeons, and excellence in both common and cutting-edge procedures that are popular with medical tourists like infertility treatments, stem-cell therapy, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and gamma knife radio surgery for brain cancer, to name a few.
The big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, with their state of the art facilities and often Western-trained doctors, have taken serious steps towards becoming legitimate destinations in the competitive medical tourism marketplace.
Shanghai has established the Shanghai Medical Tourism Products and Promotion Platform (SHMTPPP) which is an official Chinese government-supported medical tourism portal.
It is tasked with promoting China as a leading destination for advanced healthcare, and its website provides a wealth of information pertaining to China’s top hospitals, the most popular procedures with overseas patients, and costs.
source: http://www.livetradingnews.com / Live Trading News / by Paul Ebeling / November 25th, 2013
