Medical Tourism in Developing Countries

48 ● Medical Tourism in Developing CountriesAirlines, soon to be followed by Virgin Atlantic, has installed a medicalprogram that takes passengers’ vital signs and relays them back to a hospitalfor diagnosis. 26 It enables passengers to have their blood pressure measured,as well as pulse, temperature, blood-oxygen levels, and carbon dioxide.While the intent is to diagnose health problems that arise on long-haulflights, the technology is in place for the consumption of nonacute medicalservices.Medical Tourists Seeking Medical TourismMedical tourists who seek treatment in developing countries are a heterogeneousgroup. They are male and female, they are old and young, and theyrepresent varied races. They hail from countries at different levels of developmentand with different political systems. Such characteristics of internationalpatients are largely irrelevant for the development of medical tourism. Thereis one characteristic of patients that lends itself for a useful classification:income. A binary division into rich and poor patients enables us to link,albeit roughly, consumption of medical services to personal resources underthe assumption that, at the extreme, the rich and the poor consume differenthealth care. There is no clear demarcation marking the boundary betweenrich and poor, and the boundaries between the services consumed by eachare fuzzy at best. Still, one might say that the rich international patientsdemand high-tech services accompanied by an exotic vacation (luxury medicine),while the poor international patients tend to just barely cross the borderto use another country’s medical services (border medicine). This simpledifference enables us to distinguish between luxury medicine and bordermedicine (see table 3.1). In theory, both offer invasive, diagnostic, and lifestyleservices. In reality, however, border medicine tends not to be lifestyleoriented, and to the extent that it is invasive, the procedures are rarely elective.Both rich and poor foreigners are consumers of traditional medicine,although its packaging differs according to the budget it caters to.Poor medical tourists do not consume the high-tech medical services butrather purchase basic services through the public health system. They useTable 3.1 Medical tourism by patient incomeFrom MDCsFrom LDCsRich patientsElective invasive, Diagnostic,LifestyleElective invasive, Diagnostic,LifestylePoor patientsLow-tech invasive, Diagnostic,Border medical careBorder medical care