Number of medical tourists doubles in ’09

More than 60,000 foreign nationals received medical treatment in Korea last year, with their spending amounting to $50 million, government data found yesterday. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a total of 60,201 foreign patients including 4,576 American soldiers based here went to Korean hospitals for treatment, exceeding the government’soriginal goal of 50,000.The figure is more than double the 27,480 in 2008, the ministry said. The data was based on reports from 1,468 medical institutions of the total 1,547 registered to offer services to foreigners. Aimed at promoting the nation’s burgeoning medical tourism industry, the government introduced a revised bill that permits the direct marketing of medical services to foreign patients in May of last year.
As part of its campaign promoting Korean healthcare services, the government launched the brand “Medical Korea” in December under the slogan “Smart Care.” The number of inpatients was 3,915, accounting for 6.5 percent of foreign. The overal proportion of patients hospitalized in Korea stood at 11.4 percent last year. More women (56.6 percent) visited local medical institutions than men (43.3 percent). Of the Japanese patients, 79.4 percent were female.
People from the United States (32.6 percent) and Japan (30.3 percent) accounted for the majority of foreign patients, followed by Chinese (11 percent), Russians (4.1 percent), Canadians (2.3 percent), Mongolians (2 percent) and those from the Middle East (1.4 percent). Medical services mainly used by foreign patients were health checkups and aesthetic treatment such as skincare and plastic surgery. The profits from medical tourists totaled 54.7 billion won ($50 million) last year, with a foreign patient spending an average of 940,000 won. Average individual spending by Russians and Mongolians was the largest with 2.16 million won and 2.02 million won, respectively, while Japanese, who were mostly outpatients, spent the least at 630,000 won per person.
The number of people who spent more than 100 million won was 10. Twenty-five people spent between 50 million won and 100 million won and 607 spent between 10 million won and 50 million won. “Korea has taken the first step to become a country that exports developed medical services,” said a ministry official.
“Our start was a little late compared to Thailand and Singapore. However, we expect to achieve more than 30 percent growth this year by diversifying communication channels and specializing services for target countries.”
By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldm.com)