The Tribune

By ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

AS THE Bahamas continues to explore different avenues for tourism promotion, the medical tourism community has rallied to lead the charge.

People travel all over the world just to have medical procedures done, and the medical community intends to make the Bahamas a premier destination for medical tourism.

Doctors Hospital President Barry Rassin spoke about the opportunities in medical tourism at the Doctors Hospital distinguished lecture series last month.

He said most countries are recognising that medical tourism is indeed a big boost to the economy, and welcoming efforts to help attract tourists for health care reasons.

“Don’t kid yourself; it is driven by quality and it is driven by price. If you can’t prove that you are providing good quality, you are never going to get the business,” said Mr Rassin.

Doctors Hospital currently gains 16 percent of its business from international patients, said Mr Rassin. The goal is to increase business from international patients up to 50 percent, by targeting patients from North America, Canada and the Caribbean.

“We believe that there is a market out there that we can drive to our business. While Bahamians are going away for health care, there are going to be a lot of people who want to come here to get what we offer,” he said.

Explaining the meaning of medical tourism, Mr Rassin said: “We know with tourism, you travel somewhere, you have entertainment. But these days, tourism has become so specific where you travel for a reason. You might be doing environmental or sports travel, so there are different types of tourism and medical tourism is just one of the types.”

Mr Rassin said Bahamians in particular should relate to the concept, since they have been travelling to many  countries for many years to get health care.

“We estimate some thirty to forty million dollars a year travels out of this country, in order to get health care in other places, so medical tourism is not new to us,” he said.

“It is a global industry and it’s estimated that it is some three billion dollars being spent by individuals. It is a conglomerate now and people are really focusing on how to get involve in the business,” he said.

“There are what they call facilitators, who are the middle men in between the patient group and the provider. For instance, Walmart would be a patient group. They are self-ensured and they have a company as a facilitator and the facilitator decides where those patients should go for health care. So it is out of the company and the employee’s hands and the facilitator needs to take those persons to where they need to go for their purposes.”

When people ask about quality, the very first thing is, “how do you prove that you are a good quality institution,” said Mr Rassin. “There has got to be standards; we are the only joint commission accredited hospital in the Caribbean. That puts us in a place different than any hospital in the Caribbean and that’s extremely important.”