Medical tourism in Pakistan

Medical tourism is the practice of travelling across international borders to obtain health care. It also refers negatively to the practice of healthcare providers travelling internationally to deliver healthcare. The concept of medical tourism is not a new one. The first recorded instance of medical tourism dates back thousands of years to when Greek pilgrims traveled to Epidauria for medical tourism. Pakistan is a charming and affordable destination for medical tourism and has full potential to grow further.Medical tourism in Pakistan is already arranging successful medical treatments health, care and wellness trips. Pakistan has lots of modern hospitals in federal capital city Islamabad, and two provincial capitals Lahore and Karachi. Hospitals are fully equipped with the modern means of cure, and have enough facilities and comforts for the patients. Complicated plastic and reconstructive surgeries are available in Pakistan like liposuctions, face lift and many others. Surgeons of Pakistan are dealing with the orthopedic surgeries masterly; procedures of joint replacement surgeries like knee and hip replacement surgery are available in Pakistan. Hair replacement is another strong side of medical tourism in Pakistan.www.medtravelpak.com is the forum where you can get the quality information regarding every medical procedure in Pakistan. Federal ministry of health is striving hard to meet the strict standards of health and care in the hospitals sector. There are lots of  benefits for medical tourists like in Pakistan it is easy to meet the legal requirements, visa policy is not very strict and it is easy to get the health insurance in Pakistan. No doubt Pakistan is a charming and affordable destination for medical tourism and has full potential to grow further.

Pakistan manages to make a meager amount of money despite a low cost of operations as compared to neighboring country India as it receives more than 100,000 foreign patients a year. The Confederation of Indian Industry expects the sector to grow to $2 billion by 2012. Despite that operation rates are lower in Pakistan than India and fifteenth of rates in west; the medical tourism industry is declining due to several reasons:

• organ transplant tourism: poverty in Pakistan resulted in commercializing of organs from live donors resulting in criticism from WHO and human rights organizations and transmission of HIV,hepatitis B and C viruses.
• Terrorism acts and instability in the region
• Language barrier(English is not spoken officialy in hospitals etc)
• superbug NDM-1(leading to resistance to antibiotics)
• Unaware consumers about the plethora options ( different range of packages, tourism options)
• lack of proper advertisement

Conclusion:

The Government of Pakistan and Financial institutions should invest in medical tourism.
and take steps for the up gradation of basic amenities and hospitals infrastructure.
The co-ordination between the health care and tourism sectors should be increased. Media and marketing agencies should play a positive and effective role in the marketing of medical tourism in Pakistan. We should also create a resource pool of highly skilled and cordial manpower along with standardization of services and accreditation of hospitals. Facilities with the latest equipment such as heart mapping equipment, CT Scanners, Open MRI machines, heart catheterization labs, digital ultrasound and mammogram machines and more should be introduced in the hospitals.
Organ transplant tourism should be banned and the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Authority (Thota) should work properly with the total elimination of corruption and improve image of Pakistani medical tourism over the world.

References:

Facts and  figures from the Wikipedia encyclopedia