African Medical Tourism on the rise
By Nevison Bara.
HARARE, Zimbabwe.(News of the South)-The global medical tourism industry is valued at $20 billion per year, with nearly 7 million patients seeking health care abroad.
South Africa has emerged as the clear leader as a medical tourist destination on the African continent, with Morocco and Tunisia well positioned in North Africa to attract European patients. (US Chamber of Commerce, 2014)
In the past decade, African countries have experienced an increase in the number of tourists visiting for medical treatment.
Medical tourism is the result of increased globalization and travel mobility across international borders.
In African countries, medical tourism offers services that are often less expensive and of higher quality than patients would have received in their home countries.
These travellers spend more in South Africa than any other traveller (including those from the North) and are generally middle-class Africans seeking specialist diagnosis and treatment.
The second, making up over 80% of the total medical travel flow to South Africa, are formal and informal movements from countries neighbouring South Africa (especially Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe).
The countries neighbouring South Africa have much worse patient to doctor and nurse ratios than South Africa or the recommended WHO minimum. (Migration Policy no 57, 2012)
The general lack of access to medical diagnosis and treatment in SADC has led to a growing temporary movement of people across borders to seek help at South African institutions in border towns and in the major cities.
These movements are both formal (institutional) and informal (individual) in nature. In some cases, patients go to South Africa for procedures that are not offered in their own countries.
In others, patients are referred by doctors and hospitals to South African facilities. But the majority of the movement is motivated by lack of access to basic healthcare at home.
The average length of stay for medical tourists from Europe is 8 nights. The average length of stay for medical travellers from countries neighbouring South Africa, on the other hand, is lower than 4 nights and as low as 1 night in the case of Botswana and Lesotho.
This is consistent with a pattern of short-term cross-border movement to access routine medical services or treatment in South African towns close to the border between the countries.
Popular medical treatments and procedures for tourists in South Africa include:
• Dental procedures
• Cosmetic surgeries
• Fertility procedures
• Physical therapy
The above are offered at highly competitive prices, often costing a third less than those performed in the United Kingdom and the United States.
African countries that are attracting international attention and targeting the industry include South Africa, Tunisia, and Morocco.
These countries are developing comprehensive national strategies such as public-private partnerships, tax-investment incentives, and marketing.
A common medical tourism strategy is to provide comprehensive packages that include assistance with medical visas, a meet and greet at the airport, private nurses, hospital accommodations before and after surgery, as well as a luxury safari post-treatment.
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These destinations have the ideal prerequisites for a thriving medical industry: favorable climates, exotic international tourist locations, and highly certified medical practitioners and facilities. Recognizing the need for capital and financing to compete with the major medical tourist hubs in Thailand, India, and Singapore.
South Africa, Morocco, and Tunisia have embraced international partnerships and also committed to necessary infrastructure development and have secured private capital to finance upcoming projects aimed to propel their countries as top medical tourist destinations.
In 2010, the South African government released the framework of the “New Economic Growth Path” highlighting six pillars for major economic growth and job creation.
The government declared tourism as one of the main pillars tasked with generating jobs and bolstering the economy. The framework led to the creation of the National Department of Tourism and the commitment of creating 225,000 jobs and increasing tourism’s economic contribution to GDP by $47.5 billion by the year 2020.
The Thukela Health and Wellness Centre in South Africa is projected to cost $380 million and will be located in the province of KwaZulu Natal, on the East Coast of South Africa. Phased to be built over the course of 10 years, the medical wellness centre will bring an estimated 67,000 construction jobs and 5,000 staff positions once in operation.
The centre will be a one-stop shop for medical tourism and health care treatment, offering cosmetic and advanced medical surgery, an oncology unit, and a world-class luxury rehabilitation centre
Morocco’s Ministry of Tourism launched the national strategy Vision 2020. In order to attract 1.5 billion tourists and accessible markets by 2020, with a major focus on the Western and Northern Europe region.
The health and wellness tourism sectors are cited in the strategy as two major industries ripe for development and job creation. Morocco’s investments and policies have contributed greatly to the growth of the industry.
The country shares an open skies agreement with the European Union, which allows a variety of flight destinations for potential medical tourists.
Moreover, Morocco has eliminated value-added taxes on cosmetic surgeries, increasing the price competitiveness of its procedures.
In December 2012, Tasweek Real Estate Development and Marketing entered into contract and began construction of a U.S. $40 million, 21,000 square-meter health care complex. It is located in the tourism capital of Marrakech and has become known as the Marrakech Health Care City.
Upon completion in early 2015, the site provides space for a 160-bed private hospital, as well as a 40-room hotel and 56 residential apartments. It can host an estimated 5,000 patients a year, offering a variety of specialized medical procedures including surgery, cardiology, and radiology.
The Tunisian government has also embraced funding by public-private partnerships. To further attract private investment, Tunisia has begun establishing medical cities and special investment zones for companies that have medical expertise.
These cities and zones provide additional investment and tax incentives to attract international private investment.
As a result, Tunisia will soon be home to its first private hospital, funded primarily by the Japanese Tokusukai Medical Corporation. The hospital, which will be built in Tunis, has an estimated worth of U.S. $40 million and will employ 1,200 Tunisian medical personnel.
It is thus highly recommended that African destinations such as Zimbabwe with leading competitive tourism product base like the Victoria Falls should seriously consider diversification into medical tourism as a niche market for the future.
This has become more profound now in the advent of the dreaded covid-19 virus which has led to the closures of international borders, leading to the lock-up of needy patients in their home countries.
It is high time that such facilities are propelled into operation with the same zest that traditional domestic tourism is being campaigned for.
In time that the covid-19 threat is over or the world has accepted to live with it, the country should by then be equipped in that sector too, and reverse the outbound medical tourism that had taken the country by storm losing millions of dollars to such destinations as India and South Africa.
Nevison Bara is an independent economist and writer
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