The government’s plan for an international medical zone near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was the focus of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee this week, but the questions raised by lawmakers showed that they, like the Department of Health, were not thinking far enough outside the box. As it stands, the plan appears in need of life support.
On June 24 last year, the Cabinet approved the medical zone proposal as part of its plan to turn the Taoyuan airport into an aerotropolis. The government said it would invest NT$4.1 billion (US$139 million) over four years in the zone, which would create more than 3,800 jobs by providing services to 45,558 people and generate NT$10.9 billion in annual value. The Executive Yuan said health officials would develop similar plans for the center and south of the country.
The Medical Care Act (醫療法) has to be revised to allow medical institutions within the special zones to offer medical tourism services, which is why Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) appeared before the committee on Monday. Most of the questions for Chiu were on how the medical tourism zone would impact the National Health Insurance system and the care afforded Taiwanese. Legislators should have been asking if the plan was just the latest in a long line of pie-in-the-sky dreams of turning Taiwan into some sort of regional hub. They also should be questioning the goals and costs of the scheme.
Medical tourism is a growth sector. A Deloitte Consulting survey cited by officials last year showed that the number of medical tourists receiving treatment in Asia is expected to grow by more than 20 percent annually, creating an industry worth about US$4 billion by next year. However, Taiwan is already far behind the curve. Thailand, India and Singapore have thriving medical tourism sectors, and greater cost advantages, while Hong Kong and South Korea have already jumped on the bandwagon.
For example, Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital has 30 specialty clinics and 600 doctors, and its International Patient Center provides outpatient services, travel and visa assistance and offers interpreters in eight languages (including Arabic, Bengali and Mandarin) and service in English is a given. It treated 420,000 foreign patients in 2009.
Then there is Singapore, which already attracts about 200,000 medical tourists a year and wants to boost that number to 1 million annually.
Given the above figures, a target of 45,558 tourists in four years for the Taoyuan zone is ludicrous, considering that the number of tourists seeking medical check-ups or cosmetic surgery in Taiwan last year was about 40,000, up from 5,000 in 2008.
If Taiwan is already attracting more than 90 percent of the Taoyuan zone’s goal — through Taipei’s Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital and others that have targeted the Chinese tourism market — why is the government going to spend more than NT$4 billion to attract just 10 percent more? The Taoyuan plan is already obsolete right now, never mind four years from now.
And why pretend that Taiwan wants to target the “international” market? Why not be honest and say the main focus will be Chinese tourists? After all, it is one area where Taiwan has an advantage.
As for Chiu’s warning that if Taiwan did not establish medical tourism zones, the nation’s best and brightest physicians would migrate in search of better opportunities — the risk of a brain drain will not be solved by tapping the tourism market, given that most Chinese medical tourists appear interested in physicals, dentistry and cosmetic medicine.
If the government plans to move ahead with medical tourism zones for Taoyuan and elsewhere, it needs to expand the scope of its proposals, but drop the “international” pretense. Jumping on the medical tourism bandwagon just because it is the latest international trend does not make it economically viable or desirable.
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