Medical tourism safety fears

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Beverley Snell

MJA InSight Monday, 10 November, 2014

https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2014/42/medical-tourism-safety-fears
Sarah Colver

SAFETY fears about the growth of medical tourism have been heightened as an Australian health insurer forges ahead with dental and cosmetic surgery packages in Thailand.
In a Perspectives article published by the MJA, Associate Professor David Greenfield and Dr Marjorie Pawsey, of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at the University of NSW, decried the lack of regulation of the medical tourism industry, which includes cosmetic, dental, cardiac and orthopaedic procedures, bariatric surgery, organ and tissue transplantation, and in-vitro fertilisation. The industry is valued at more than US$20 billion globally. (1)

They wrote that there were important unanswered questions about the industry, including its impacts on patient safety and national biosecurity.

The authors warned there were limited and untested regulatory frameworks in countries offering medical tourism, and asked how quality and safety claims of overseas health care organisations were assessed. They said there was no certainty over the legal protections available to medical tourists. Read more

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