Medical Tourism in Korea
Medical Technologies and treatment at low costs …
A number of officials of the health sector in South Korea confirmed that South Korea's competitiveness in the provision of health services is not only very high, but it is superior to that offered by Western countries known to be popular destinations for medical tourism. Officials noted that South Korea has the medical expertise, except that of devices and technologies, making it the top of the field of medical tourism in the provision of sophisticated treatments most important of various cancer and organ transplantation, spinal surgery and cardiology disease treatments.
However, what can encourage patients from outside South Korea, preference therapeutic tourism destination, for others? Are hospitals and health centers equipped with the latest medical equipment, whether it is employing the latest technology, or is it the reasonable cost of treatment in this hospital?
I asked this question to various doctors, nurses and government officials whom I met during my visit to South Korea early April 2016, a visit came at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in South Korea, and concentrated in the third and fourth days, the distinctive therapeutic services available in the city of Seoul, particularly those provided to patients from all over the world.
I first met with the General Manager of the Center for Specialized Health Care for Middle East countries, Hwang Hyun Gyu. This center is part of Korea Health Industry Development Institute which operates under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health.
Hwang Hyun Gyu promotes, who runs a center for medical tourism in South Korea, confirmed that South Korea is highly competitive in the area of health, is due to advanced medical equipment and services, particularly in providing disease treatments such as heart disease, cancer and bone marrow.
He added “What distinguishes Korea as a cost competitive country for treatment compared to Germany, Japan, USA and as for marking a high rate of post-surgery survival, which is the highest among those in the developed countries, as we have become in the last 5 years, the list of countries that provide the best health services in the world », confirmed« on a technical level, take pride in the development of medical technologies that are considered best in the world.
Why Korea? According to reports obtained from Hwang Hyun Gyu, Korea made their first surgery, and since 1959 to change the heart arteries and doctors saved many lives of Korean patients and throughout the world. With the establishment of the Korea Foundation for the heart, Korea sought by heart disease surgery techniques for the development of surgical solutions for congenital heart defects. The figures indicate that the death rate in Korea due to coronary heart disease dropped 0.60% after year 1990 substantially.
Since the year 2000 onwards the number of surgeries acquired heart disease such as coronary heart disease or valve disease has greatly increased, and today Korea has gained an international reputation because of the skill of doctors in conducting advanced heart surgery because of the evolution of the techniques used in these surgeries.
South Korea also achieved the highest success rate in the world for heart transplantation, by extending the short term post-surgery survival rate of coronary heart disease to 99 % and after 5 years to 86%, which is higher than any other rate of anywhere in the world ratio. The Koreans are proud that the success rate of the coronary vessel operation is 93%, while the death rate among patient doesn’t exceed 4.9% this is a lower percentage compared to developed countries, which ranges between 5~7%.
That the percentage of studies suggests also adverse complications after heart surgery, 12.7%, in Korea are much lower than in developed countries percent.
Also, the rates of 20, which amounts to death during surgery and interventional procedures to repair congenital heart defects in decreased percent due to the use of 1 to less than surgical treatments intrusive.
Studies also indicate that the ratio of negative complications after heart surgery in Korea is 12.7%, which is much lower than in developed countries,
which amounts to 20%. Also, the mortality rate during surgery and interventional procedures to repair congenital defects in the heart fell to less than 1% due to the use of intrusive surgical treatments.
There are 11 heart disease centers established by the Korean government. These center treat the patients from an appropriate early stage of heart disease. Not only they are devoting themselves to enhance the quality of the treatment, but also to continue their research to raise their performance rate.
Since 2008, the number of Korean cardiologists is increasing continuously with listed names on the list of the most important doctors in the world in this field such as “Who's Who, IBC, Hippocrates Marquis”.
Korea also achieved great successes in the field of open-heart surgery in particular to infants and newborns that are underweight, due to the advanced technologies used in extremely pediatric surgery.
Cancers
Featuring the treatment of cancers in Korea, since 18 years ago, the survival rate of major types of cancers has gone up to 66.3 years in the recent 5 years. In case of breast cancer and thyroid cancer, which are the 2 most common types of cancer, the percentage of survival rate of each cancer reached from 91.3% to 100%.
This is a rate higher than that found in advanced countries such as the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan, in particular with regard to prostate cancer, where the percentage of survival to 99.2%. Korea is the best as well as in the treatment of stomach cancer, as up survival rate at 64.9% compared to 27.7% in America and 25.0% in Canada and 63.3% in Japan.
According to the assurances Hwang Hyun Gyu, most of the patients from the Middle East come from the United Arab Emirates, based on the agreement signed by the UAE with South Korea in 2012 in the hope of further agreements with other countries in the region, including the States of Qatar and Kuwait. Hwang points out that the number of patients from the Middle East, including almost 5,500 patients 27 of them are Bahrainis receiving different treatments at their own expense.
I moved then from the Development of Health Care Specialist Center of the Middle East countries, to a tour of one of the oldest and largest university hospitals in South Korea, “Severance Hospital” and specifically the International Health Care Center hospital. The Hospital itself has 5 hospitals and 7 specialized centers and 16 clinics and receives a million Korean patients annually.
Severance Hospital performs the biggest number of robotic surgery in Asia, gained a reputation as being the best and most famous hospital to conduct this type of surgery.
Robotic surgery began in 2005, and since then, the hospital conducted 10,000 robot-assisted surgeries. In November, the hospital began to apply the Da Vinci Robotic Surgery system in 2013, the newest and most unique system in the field of surgery achievement in the world.
The robotic surgery is performed in the field of prostate and thyroid gland surgery and stomach cancer, etc., and the hospital has performed 800 robot- assisted surgeries in endocrinology and 600 surgeries in urology and 140 robotic surgeries to treat stomach cancer. In the year 2005, the center installed modern medical equipment with the latest technology, such as devices used in minimally invasive surgery and robotic devices MRI. With these devices in the world, the hospital has become, one of the most sophisticated hospitals, outperforming global innovative that commissioned over 10,000 robot-assisted surgeries for the first time in of the world.
Such operation was utilized in special cases, such as thyroid cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and stomach cancer. In addition to the technical department introduced in the nose, ear and throat, and in open-heart surgery and cardiovascular surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology, and in neurosurgery. It includes 96% success case of the hospital in prostate cancer patients who recovered from robot –assisted surgeries.
Other Accomplishments
The hospital is the first hospital to be certified by International Joint Commission in 2010 and in 2013. It also received a certificate of medical care program in the treatment of primary stroke in 2010. These accreditations for the hospital were great achievements in its commitment to provide medical quality care and maintaining the safety of patients.
The accreditation is considered a new breakthrough for Korea allowing it to enter a new Era of outstanding universal medical care, in addition to this, the hospital holds the highest rank on the list of national customer satisfaction for the third year in a row the index, in the year 2013
International Health Care Center
The end of my tour in the hospital was at the International Specialized Health Care Center that provides all health care for international patients. The centre was established in 1999, to be developed after just one year by adding new buildings due to the growing demand of patients from all around the world on receiving center services. Also, the centre added the translation services for a number of languages up to 7 languages which are English, Russian, Mongolian, Arabic, Spanish, Chinese and French, so as to meet the growing needs of patients and the diversity of languages.
According to Mr. Han-young Kim, a doctor at the Centre, around 2,500 patients were received from the Gulf States since 2010; 90% of the patients are from the United Arab Emirates. Patients from abroad usually accept therapies concerning cancer, cardiology and bone marrow treatments.
He stressed that patients from all over the world are willing to be treated in the hospital is due to its high-end medical services and other associated services provided by the hospital, which is cost competitive compared to Europe and America, as well as the level of health services. He referred to the patients from the Middle East, by stating: «We receive a lot of patients from the UAE, and our
hospital is the first hospital to receive patients like Emiratis, particularly for heart disease, who are sent by the UAE government to receive medical treatment in Korea in the event of unavailability in the UAE»
Seoul National University Hospital:
My third station was the Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH); the first established hospital in Korea which was constructed 50 years ago.
The hospital staff is proud that the history of the hospital opening coincides with the history of medicine in Korea, and that the hospital pioneer in the field of medical innovations in Korea, the first in a number of clinical trials registered on the US National Institute of Health NIH database
Due to the growing demand on the hospital’s services from all over the world, the International Health Care Centre was opened; a division of global fame manifested in the spread of photographs of globally notable figures, which have received medical care in such as the former advisor and current US Ambassador to Korea, Henry Kissinger.
Lee Gwang Woong, the Executive Director of the Hospital, mentioned that the centre is visited by 150 international patients daily and, since 2012, has started to receive patients from the Middle East, particularly from the United Arab Emirates. So far, 290 Emirati patients have visited the centre since the beginning of 2016 and 586 patients in 2015 only.
The hospital combined many divisions including the Oncology division which was established in 2014. The division has more than 500 beds with more than 18 daily surgical operations being performed. The Oncology division itself, is a multi-level division combining specialized departments in the treatment of different types of cancer diseases such as psycho therapy and rehabilitation. The Centre receives 300 cancer patients daily.
Language barrier
A nurse at the Seoul National University hospital said that the language barrier is the most important barrier faced by patients coming from the Middle East, but pointed out that the hospital is working to increase translators from and to
Arabic. The hospital stated that they are providing all means of comfort to patients Arab countries and ensuring the provision of Halal food in the hospital restaurants and the development of a hospital menu to include recipes that suit the taste of patients from the Persian Gulf and Middle East countries.
Nurse Park In young of Severance Hospital also pointed out that the language barrier is the most important barrier for patients from the Middle East comes first followed by the food preferences, noting that the hospital is working on training its chefs aided by Arab chefs who are more familiar with the Middle Eastern cuisine recipes.
Park also added that the hospital has allocated a prayer room in the hospital, in addition to important information and guidelines for foreign visitors with important Korean phrases that may be needed by the visitor written in Arabic.