Medical Tourism Trends

Before ten years the medical tourism was barely large enough to be a significant one. Now a days more than 250,000 patients per year visit Singapore alone - nearly half of them in the Middle East. This year, approximately half a million foreign patients will travel to India for medical treatment while in 2002 the number was only 150,000. In nominal terms, experts estimate that medical tourism could bring India as much as $ 2.2 billion annually by 2012. Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, South Africa, Jordan, Malaysia, Hungary, Latvia and Estonia have all taken a foothold in this lucrative market as well, or try to thus, and more countries join the list each year. Some important trends guarantee that the market for medical tourism will continue to increase in coming years. By 2015, the health of the vast baby boom generation has begun its slow decline and final, and, with more than 220 million boomers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand This represents a significant market for inexpensive medical care and high quality. The medical tourism will be particularly attractive in the U.S., where 43 million people without medical insurance is disease and 120 million without coverage - numbers that are two to develop. Patients in Britain, Canada and other countries with long waiting lists for major surgery will be just as eager to take advantage of the foreign health care.