M’sia’s medical tourism sector seeing signs of growth

KUALA LUMPUR: Since the start of this year, Hemakumari Sugayindran’s main mission was to ensure the smooth implementation of plans to harness the potential of healthcare tourism.

The senior executive of International Patient Centre (IPC) at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur (PHKL) and her team were committed to positioning PHKL as the hospital of choice among foreigners seeking medical care in various fields.

PHKL had been expecting a rise in healthcare visitor arrivals this year as the government had initially promoted 2020 as Malaysia Year of Healthcare Travel, alongside Visit Malaysia Year 2020. However, the Covid-19 outbreak threw a spanner in the works, resulting in downturns in many industries and business sectors, including healthcare tourism, in Malaysia and globally.

Hemakumari said PHKL’s healthcare tourism business has seen rapid growth over the years and in February this year it opened the IPC, a special unit dedicated to providing top quality services to international patients.

“The IPC is not only designated to handle the needs of our healthcare tourists but is also spacious and located on the ground floor, thus facilitating registration and consultation processes,” she told Bernama.

Hemakumari said IPC was set up in anticipation of a hike in the admission of international patients this year. Although the ongoing pandemic has to a certain extent impacted the hospital’s healthcare tourism sector, the situation, nevertheless, did not dampen their spirit and the hospital continues to provide its best healthcare services to its international patients, who are mainly cancer patients from Indonesia. They were admitted to PHKL before the Movement Control Order was imposed in March and were reluctant to return to their homeland as they are worried that they may not be able to return to Malaysia for follow-up treatments as long as the country’s international borders remain closed.

Malaysia’s healthcare tourism industry showed some encouraging signs of growth after the government opened its borders in phases to international patients, beginning July 1 after the Recovery Movement Control Order set in.

“During the (initial phase of) MCO, we didn’t get many calls from international patients as our borders were closed. But after our government announced that the borders will be reopened for healthcare travellers, IPC was inundated with calls.

“Most of the callers were new patients who wished to know how to go about seeking treatment and enquired about our oncology, paediatric, cardiology, neurosurgery, orthopaedic and gastroenterology treatments,” Hemakumari said.

Although Malaysia’s borders are open to foreigners seeking medical care in Malaysia, only critically ill patients and those in need of urgent medical attention with serious health issues such as cancer, and neurosurgery and paediatric cases are allowed entry. The patients must have a supporting letter from the hospital, which has to be a member of the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC).

Approval for the patients to enter Malaysia is also subject to compliance with stringent standard operating procedures (SOPs) such as screening for Covid-19, securing the green light from the Immigration Department and travelling to Malaysia by air ambulance, personal jet or chartered flight in order to stem Covid-19 transmissions.

Hemakumari said even though the government has reopened its borders for international patients, PHKL is not in a rush to admit them as the safety of the Malaysian public and its doctors and staff is its top priority.

“We at IPC will first seek the approval from the treating doctor concerned whether he or she is willing to accept and treat the international patient based on the medical reports from their country of origin,” she said.

Interestingly, from their recent telephone conversations with potential international patients, it was clear that many of them did not view the pandemic as a deterrent to seeking treatment in Malaysia, she said. “The callers didn’t ask if our hospital has any Covid-19 case or how the situation was in Malaysia. They just wanted to know how to seek treatment,” she said.