Medical Tourism in Developing Countries

80 ● Medical Tourism in Developing CountriesBrundlandt, said, “Partnership is what is needed in today’s world, partnershipbetween government and industry, between producers and consumers,between the present and the future.” 61 The term of choice for such cooperationbecame PPP (public/private partnership). This is defined by Buse andWalt as “A collaborative relationship which transcends national boundariesand brings together at least three parties, among them a corporation (and/orindustry association) and an intergovernmental organization, so as toachieve a shared health-creating goal on the basis of a mutually agreed divisionof labour.” 62 Some 80 percent of them are funded through philanthropies.63 In the 2000s, these public-private partnerships have made it to thetop of the UN’s list because they enable its agencies to be more effective intheir efforts in developing countries. However, while they have been toutedas a panacea for health-care problems in LDCs, they have also been verycontroversial, drawing much criticism. 64Thus far, no such formal partnership has been extended to medical tourism.While all parties in destination countries under study agree thatmutual ties are important, cooperation is informal and voluntary. This distinctiongives rise to large variety in the answers to the following questions:what is the nature of the private/public cooperation, namely, does it entailsharing funds and/or joint decision making; if so, is this cooperationexpected to occur always or just sometimes; if sometimes, then under whatcircumstances? Also, should there be a law that stipulates the nature of thecooperation and, as Judith Richter suggested, should there be regulatoryarrangements to implement voluntary (legally nonbinding) codes of conduct?65 There is not even consensus on the relevance of these questions, letalone their answers. Nonetheless, cooperation between the public and privatesectors is crucial for all tourism, and medical tourism in particular,because of the complexity of the industries involved, and the inability ofeither one to function in the absence of the other. In the absence of cooperation,the two sectors could be working against each other and underminingeach other’s efforts. Moreover, the public sector alone does not have theresources to satisfy public health demands (with the exception of Cuba thathas no private sector), and the private sector alone cannot provide privatehealth care (for foreign or domestic patients) in the absence of institutionaland infrastructure support of the government.Therefore, first and foremost, the public and the private sectors mustacknowledge their dependency on each other. Authorities must acknowledgethat growth comes from the private sector given its greater investmentresources as well as its ability to draw foreign capital. The private sector mustlead in identifying and developing opportunities in medical tourism while