Medical Tourism in Developing Countries

Promoting Medical Tourism ● 107Table 5.2 contains data on perceptions of brain drain collected by theWorld Economic Forum. Top business executives were asked to react to thefollowing statement: your country’s talented people: 1 normally leave topursue opportunities in other countries, 7 almost always remain in thecountry. The Philippines, notorious for its brain drain, in fact ranks lowestamong the countries pursuing medical tourism. Chile’s talented people arethought to remain in the country so much so that it ranks eighth in theworld according to that indicator.Brain drain also occurs when doctors and nurses from developing countriestrain abroad and then opt to remain there. Gupta, Goldar, and Mitranoted that only 48 percent of the Indian doctors who trained abroadreturned home. 42 However, they cite a study conducted in 1993 and it islikely that this number has changed given the rise in medical tourism. Andthis leads us to brain gain.Medical tourism has opened up the possibility of brain gain of highlyskilled workers. Such brain gain carries high monetary value as a countryreceives skilled workers (that it didn’t have to train), as well as their productivity,drive, and tax revenue. There are different ways of getting braingain. Some are short term, such as derived from the UNDP program calledTransfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nations (TOKEN) that arrangesthat expats return to work on specific programs. Most are more long term,attained both by retention efforts and induced reverse migration.Table 5.2 Brain drain, 2005CountryTalented people stay or leaveArgentina 3.0 (72)Chile 5.3 (8)Costa Rica 4.2 (29)Cuban.a.India 3.6 (47)Jordan 2.6 (87)Malaysia 5.0 (15)South Africa 3.1 (68)Philippines 2.3 (101)Thailand 4.9 (17)USA 6.4 (1)Zimbabwe 1.7 (116)Note : Values range between 1 and 7 (7 is highest), and country rank is inparentheses.Source : World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Report 2005–06,(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), table 4.08.