Medical Tourism

The Lure Of Medical Tourism

What is medical tourism? Indeed could you become a medical tourist in the future?

Perhaps.Perhaps you live in a place such as the U.K. or Canada where either there are long queues for medical procedures or care. Perhaps as in the case in Canada that not only are there long queue lines for medical care but Socialist thinking makes it impossible and indeed immoral for any one to jump the queue. According the standard socialist trend thinking in Canada, if a person mortgages their home in order to obtain a life saving kidney transplant overseas, then they are considered to be an evil person who has “jumped the queue”.. Indeed as noted medical economist M. L. Labovitch notes that in the” North End Socialist mindset “, that had this person completed the real estate transaction to travel and party or to buy government sponsored lottery tickets then they would be commended and all would be fine and dandy. Finally it may be that it may be that you just cannot afford the cost of medical treatment of medical procedure in your geographic and home area.


There is nothing new under the sun in the concept of medical tourism. Indeed the first recorded examples of medical tourism date back thousands of yeas when Greek pilgrims traveled from all the Mediterranean to the small territory in the Sardonic Gulf called Epidauria. Epidauria was the sanctuary of the healing god Asklepios. Epidauria was the first original travel destination for what has become to be known as “Medical Tourism”.

Medical tourists can come from anywhere in the world including the United States Europe, the U.K., the Middle East, This because of the large population, relatively high wealth. The high expenses of health care “back home” and / or limited access or long wait times for medical care and / or medical procedures.

It used to be that the best medical care was in the wealth industrialized countries.
Rochester at the Mayo Clinic or in private hospitals in the U.K. The brightest of the third world often went to the wealthy countries and stayed on as they felt both their professional and financial options were more than limited in countries of origin.

Not now. The world had become a much smaller place with modern communications and travel. Costs (especially labor which is a major component of any health care system) is much less. Furthermore the industrialized world has a legacy of an older infrastructure and labor codes. Everything that is set up or purchased in the former areas of the third world where medical tourism is expanding is usually brand new, if not state or the art. And if outside help or expertise is required this is readily accessible in our new modern age of high speed internet communications and transportation. Standards of care and level of medical expertise are generally just as high as and sometimes even higher than at home in the industrialized wealthy counties. Indeed instead of an old steamy dingy hospital cafeteria that you expected the medical tourist may well think that they are in a luxury 5 star resort. As the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted in 0his authoritative books “ The World is Flat” , “France can forgot about trying to save her 6 week worker vacation period standard holidays.”. “In India they are trying to figure out how they can work 24 hours a day”. (Maggie Z. Mathews)