Medical tourism to reverse ‘brain drain’ — Palace

The Philippines is set to cash in on medical tourism, a booming multibillion-dollar global industry that is beginning to make waves in the country’s health care sector, Malacañang said yesterday.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said medical tourism may be just the solution to the "brain drain" arising from the exodus of Filipino doctors and other health professionals to foreign countries.

He said that during a recent meeting in Malacañang, Commission on Higher Education Chairman Carlito Puno told the Cabinet that "for every three doctors who leave the country every year, our medical schools can only produce two doctors, (making) a net drain of one doctor every year."

"The simplistic solution would be to produce more doctors," Bunye said. "The more creative solution would be to nurture conditions that will induce the doctors as well as other health professionals to stay in the Philippines. Over the long term, we might just have that kind of solution: medical tourism."

He explained that, due to the rising cost of health care in industrialized countries, more and more patients are going abroad for their medical needs.

Lasik eye surgery, for instance, can be done in the Philippines for around $800 while a similar operation overseas would cost $2,000.

Blepharoplasty, or a procedure that widens the contour of the eyes popular among the Koreans and the Japanese, costs only P150,000 in the country, but may cost up to P500,000 ($10,000) in Korea and Japan, Bunye said.

He said the Philippines has a formidable listing of "prime private medical institutions" such as Asian Hospital, Makati Medical Center, Medical City, St. Luke’s Medical Center and the Cardinal Santos Medical Center, which employ A-1 medical staff competent enough to perform complex medical procedures such as heart valve replacements, orthodontic services, knee replacements and elective procedures such as lasik and cosmetic surgery.

"Indeed, medical tourism offers very bright prospects — not only for the country in general but also for medical and other health practitioners in particular. In fact, on our first year of medical tourism, the Philippines earned, by (Health) Secretary (Francisco) Duque III’s estimates, in the neighborhood of $200 million," Bunye said.

Buoyed by this initial success, the Philippines is now poised to go for a bigger share of the booming medical tourism market. From Nov. 20 to 21, the Department of Health (DOH) will hold the first Medical Tourism Congress and Exposition to showcase the very best providers of health care and wellness, Bunye said. — Paolo Romero