Medical Tourism: A Global Vote of Confidence for Malaysian Health Care

Malaysia is one of the top five medical tourism destinations in the world, a statistic that positively reflects on us. Although those tourists are attracted by the lower costs of common surgical procedures, foreigners would not be coming here if our medical expertise were not of the highest standard.
And while it is easy to dismiss medial tourism as foreigners arriving for "vanity procedures" like facelifts, our expert surgeons are, in fact, delivering affordable medical care that transforms lives such as the hip replacement to the Australian retirees who have been stuck on a waiting list Down Under. After the good treatment they get in Malaysia, they can go home with a new lease of life.
We also attract an increasing number of British patients who feel let down by their beleaguered National Health Service, and an increasing number from the Middle East, who come not just for the medical expertise in an Islamic environment, but for the care and understanding of the nursing staff.
It shows just how far we have come. Three decades ago tourists were warned to avoid local medical care when visiting Malaysia and urged only to use western doctors in case of emergency, recommended by their hotel or tour operator. Now we have visitors in their thousands, choosing Malaysian doctors in preference to those from their home nations.
And it is not just about medical procedures. Pharmaceutical companies with operations in Malaysia include Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Novartis and Abbott. These companies are producing everything from aspirin to Viagra in what is a highly specialised advanced technology industry in a sector that the Government wants to grow under the Economic Transformation Programme.
Again, these companies would not be operating here if the quality of our chemical engineers and pharmacists were not top rank.
The ultimate vote of confidence is that companies such as GSK and Pfizer, which have a presence in nine locations including Shah Alam, Penang, Ipoh and Kuching are not only producing drugs that have been developed elsewhere but are increasingly choosing to do their costly development work here.
For a company like GSK that spends two million euros per day (RM8 million) globally on research and development, that is a risk it would only take if key conditions – from a skilled workforce to a business-friendly government (currently in place) – are met.
A medical tourist arriving at the Gleneagles Intan Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur might think they have arrived at a luxury hotel instead of a hospital. Rather than the sterile confines of many hospitals in their home nations, they stay in plush suites where the staffing levels put many public hospitals – and hotels - to shame.
But ultimately they are here for the care. Both the medical expertise and the trademark Malaysian smile will tell them that they're well looked after.