Sometimes, Sightseeing Is a Look at Your X-Rays

Interesting article about both sides of medical tourism..and brings to light what type of medical attention the citizens of these countries receive...BD

But just as American travelers begin getting comfortable with the safety of foreign hospitals, they face a new question. With developing world hospitals focusing on medical tourists, some may take doctors away from understaffed public clinics in nations like India and Thailand, potentially leading to a public backlash against medical visitors. Already, the press in Thailand and India has warned that medical tourism, which can be more lucrative for physicians, is sucking doctors away from public clinics.

Only days after my luxury dengue treatment at Bumrungrad, I saw this other side. At a larger Thai hospital where I’d walked in after feeling my fever spiking, I sat on a hard bench in the middle of a waiting room littered with cigarette butts and empty plastic bottles. For over an hour, no one called me. When a nurse finally approached me, she warned there wouldn’t be any doctors around for hours, and then turned and walked away.

I got up and took a cab to Bumrungrad.

Source: Sometimes, Sightseeing Is a Look at Your X-Rays - New York Times