Medical tourism in Malaysia
Medical tourism represents an important economic area within the health system in Malaysia . The number of medical tourists visiting Malaysia per year has increased to 770,134 (2013) due to the close interlinking of private and government initiatives and organizations.
prehistory
The Malaysian medical sector draws on two sources: “traditional” medicineand Western medicine as it came to Malaysia as a result of British colonial rule. In the wake of independence, there was a low-cost, wide-ranging availability of medical services for a large part of the population. The Malaysian health system in the 1980s was comparable to the level of western industrialized countries based on indicators, with less than 2% of the gross domestic product going into the medical sector. At that time, the Malaysian health system can be characterized as being almost entirely in government hands. In the 1980s, rising public health care costs led to an economically liberal shift in the health care system, during which private individuals had to pay more and more for medical services themselves.
The extent of privatization can in part be measured using indicators such as the private share of the total number of hospital beds . While this was 5% in 1980, it increased to 15% by the 1990s and reached 25% before the start of the Asian crisis . In parallel with the establishment of a private network of hospitals and medical facilities, there was an expansion of the medical focus from the previously prevalent containment of infectious diseases and the development of hygienic standards to a more disease-preventive health method that is oriented towards the individual needs of the patient.
The private hospitals jumped into this niche and by the turn of the millennium a large number of medical specialists could be found in the private sector. In the 1990s and 2000s, a dualism developed between the private and public health systems. The latter came more and more into the reputation of inferiority compared to the private sector due to its limited financing options. Nevertheless, the private sector continues to be an important source of supply for the local population.
The privatization proceeded in such a way that some of the hospitals were privatized, but in terms of ownership remained in state hands. The Malaysian Ministry of Health monitored and accelerated the privatization process and saw itself as a regulatory body that laid down the guidelines for the treatments offered and the required qualifications of private and public health providers. The privatization of the health system provoked opposition from various associations. B. the Malaysian Medical Association . It was criticized that the outsourcing of medical services to the private sector made them unaffordable for those on low incomes, so that they were excluded from a large part of possible services.
Medical tourism
The economic interest in health tourism in Malaysia arose in the Malaysian economy primarily in the wake of the Asian crisis of 1997. The Asian crisis, which Malaysia survived relatively lightly compared to other countries in the region, led to an economic slump in the medical sector of Malaysia, as the loss of assets of the Patients moved away from paid private treatment. This put private hospitals in dire straits. The government institutions reacted with the strategy of strengthening private hospitals through Malaysia's entry into global medical tourism on the one hand and helping the Malaysian economy to continue high growth rates through health tourism through foreign capital through the crisis on the other. Health tourism can be seen in the context of the efforts of the Malaysian government to accelerate the economic development of Malaysia by expanding the tourism sector, based on the logic that patients, as well as possible accompanying relatives, would spend longer stays in Malaysia than conventional tourists. Campaigns are also carried out in coordination with private hotels.
At the beginning of the millennium, Malaysia set up an economic strategy aimed at transforming Malaysia into the status of a high-income country by 2020 as part of the “Vision 2020”. For the Malaysian government, health tourism plays a central role within the tourism sector, which itself is listed among the 12 key industries that are expected to make Malaysia a highly developed country by 2020. Under the 8th Malaysia Plan (2001-5), health tourism was seen as an opportunity to bring Malaysia to a knowledge-based economy, thereby reducing the Malaysian economy's focus on the manufacturing sector. Institutionally, this new strategy found its forerunner in the creation of the National Committee for the Promotion of Health Tourism in Malaysia, which was founded in direct response to the Asian crisis. This linked the Malaysian ministries of health, tourism and trade with the Association of Private Hospitals (APHM) and the tourism sector.
In 2009 the Malaysian Ministry of Health launched the “Malaysia Healthcare” campaign with the aim of setting clear guidelines for the industry and introducing a new central plan, in the course of which the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council was established as a new central coordination and marketing institution. The aim of the Malaysian efforts in the field of health tourism, in contrast to Singapore, which seeks to attract people with very high incomes, was to induce middle-income people to travel to Malaysia. This advertising strategy was made possible by the fact that the prices for health services in Malaysia are lower than in the regionally competing countries Singapore and Thailand. The primary focus on low incomes can also be seen in the Malaysian Ministry of Health's 2002 strategy report.
The first new measures mostly comprised tax breaks for private hospitals. In addition, other tax exemptions were granted to hospitals in the field of health tourism. Private hospitals that built new buildings or expansions were also completely exempt from the tax. An attempt was made to increase the capital stock of the private medical sector by means of tax breaks for private investors in the health tourism sector. In order to minimize bureaucratic hurdles when entering Malaysia, access to Malaysia was simplified. Health tourist visas can easily be extended up to three months. The same applies to up to four accompanying people.
Medical tourism to Malaysia has developed rapidly over the past few decades. During the period from 1998 to 2008, the annual number of medical tourists increased from a good 39,000 to a good 374,000 and to 882,000 in 2014. By 2020, up to 1.9 million patients are to be attracted annually.
The majority of the medical tourists treated in Malaysia come from the Southeast Asian region, the majority from Indonesia . Singapore and Thailand, and to a limited extent India, are considered to be Malaysia's main competitors in the medical tourism sector. In contrast to these, Malaysia is rather new in the field of health tourism and is therefore trying to survive by assigning various attributes to a "therapeutic landscape" Malaysia.
literature
- Chee Heng Leng: Medical Tourism in Malaysia: International Movement of Healthcare Consumers and the Commodification of Healthcare . Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series No. 83. National University of Singapore, 2007.
- Meghann Ormond: Neoliberal Governance and International Medical Travel in Malaysia . London, New York: Routledge, 2013
- Kee Mun Wong, Musa Ghazali: Medical tourism in Asia: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and India . In: Medical tourism: the ethics, regulation, and marketing of health mobility, CM Hall. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 167-186.
- Kee Mun Wong, Peramarajan Velasamy, Tengku Nuraina, Tengku Arshad: Medical Tourism Destination SWOT Analysis: A Case Study of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and India . SHS Web of Conferences 12 (10), 2014.
Individual evidence
- ^ Wong, p. 2
- ↑ Ormond, p. 19
- ↑ Leng, p. 7
- ↑ Leng, p. 8
- ↑ Ormond, p. 28
- ↑ Leng, p. 8
- ↑ Leng, p. 7
- ↑ Ormond, p. 25
- ↑ Leng, p. 23
- ^ Wong, Ghazali, p. 15
- ↑ Ormond, p. 27
- ↑ Ormond, p. 28
- ↑ Ormond, p. 26
- ↑ Ormond, p. 28
- ↑ Ormond, p. 28, Leng, p. 10
- ↑ Leng, p. 10
- ^ Wong, Ghazali, p. 18
- ↑ Wong, Velasamy, p 2
- ↑ Malaysia's west relies on medical tourism. Retrieved January 22, 2020 .