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Medical travel, or traveling abroad primarily for medical treatment, has been increasingly growing over the past decade. Medical tourists come from different regions of the world. Many of them are from Europe and the United Kingdom, the USA, the Middle East and Japan. These numbers are determined by their large populations, relatively high wealth, higher healthcare costs, lack of healthcare options locally, and ever greater people’s expectations concerning healthcare. Seeking medical care abroad is related with various benefits.
The opportunity to undergo certain medical procedures for lower prices is the most common factor beyond the increasing medical tourism. Lower healthcare costs in such regions as Latin America, Eastern Europe or India allows for the opportunity to have a holiday in an exotic country, stay for a recovery period in total anonymity, and return home having spent less or the same amount of money as on a particular procedure alone in one’s home country. Thus, patients gain from cost savings, and can receive first-rate care from highly qualified specialists.
What’s more, medical travel is booming because it is still tourism. Treatment as the primary purpose of medical travel justifies a long-distance trip, which would be rarely taken only for the sake of travel. A lot of companies all over the world offer all inclusive holiday packages that combine leisure with medical procedures.
Finally, the growth of medical tourism has been conditioned by the search for more personalized care and the attempt to avoid long waiting periods in such countries as the USA, Canada and Britain. While the waiting period for a certain medical procedure can be a year in these countries, a patient can receive the needed treatment immediately after getting off a plane in India or Thailand.
However, undergoing treatment abroad may be risky. For example, infectious diseases in such countries as Thailand, India, Malaysia or Costa Rica are different than in North America and Europe. Having no natural immunity to foreign diseases may be a hazard for weakened patients.
Some holiday-related activities may worsen patients’ health. Many travel agencies sell cosmetic surgery trips as vacations, while certain leisure activities such as sunbathing, taking extensive tours, swimming, jet-skiing, parasailing, etc. may increase the possibility of complications and detain healing. Thus, although tempting, certain holiday activities should be avoided after surgery (it also depends on the type of procedure undergone).
Moreover, if there any complications, medical travel tourists might not be covered by insurance. Additionally, patients might not be able to pursue sufficient compensation via malpractice lawsuits.
Surgery or long flights are known to increase the possible risk of developing pulmonary embolism and blood clots. The risk is even greater when traveling is combined with surgery as in the case of medical travel. Therefore, before flying, it is advisable to wait 5 to 7 days after body procedures such as breast augmentation and liposuction, and 7 to 10 days after facial cosmetic procedures.
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