GERMANY: More Gulf Medical Tourists Head To Berlin

Berlin wants to attract 10,000 additional tourists from the Arabian Gulf this year, as the city targets travellers seeking medical treatment.

Burkhard Kieker, the chief executive of visitBerlin, the tourism board of the German capital, was in Abu Dhabi to meet government health officials and representatives of local private hospitals to promote the city as a medical tourism destination.

Europe has been suffering due to the security situation for the past one year but we see a strong recovery in the number of tourists from the Gulf, Mr Kieker says.

Last year, Berlin received 50,000 tourists from the Arabian Gulf, of which about 12,000 were medical tourists, making it the second-most popular German city after Munich.

This year, Mr Kieker expects the number of tourists from the Arabian Gulf to grow by 20 per cent and the number of medical tourists to increase by about 30 per cent.

We expect an increase in medical tourists because leading families from the region come to Berlin, it is a city where you can feel safe, it has a large Muslim population, it has great shopping and has around 28 five-star hotels, Mr Kieker said.

There has been heavy investment in the hospitals and clinics, and an increase in Arabic-speaking staff.

The changes in insurance policies in Abu Dhabi that make it more expensive for some Emiratis to seek treatment abroad did not impact the patient numbers to Berlin, according to Mr Kieker.

There has been a rise in the number of self-pay patients to Berlin because they do not want to wait in a line, although the majority of the patients are still government sponsored, he said.

Emiratis and Gulf medical tourists typically seek oncology, urology, cardiology, diabetology and trauma care treatment.

An average Emirati patient can stay anywhere between two weeks and three months,said Nizar Maarouf, the vice director of Vivantes International Medicine, a Berlin-based healthcare group with nine hospitals.

Berlin has about 80 clinics and hospitals such as the Vivantes hospital group and Charite Berlin.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the top countries in the Arabian Gulf region to send medical tourists to Germany, including Berlin.

Etihad flies to Berlin twice daily from Abu Dhabi.

Qatar Airways also connects the UAE capital to Berlin. Emirates is yet to get landing rights in Berlin.

Terrorist attacks in Europe have hurt its tourism sector.

In its annual report, Emirates cited these terror attacks as among the reasons for soft demand to Europe from the region.

US: Stem Cell Clinic Group Expands Globally

A US group is developing stem cell treatment clinics in several countries, targeting medical tourists. Bioscience Americas is targeting medical tourists with plans to open in several countries.

Bioscience Americas the leading international developer of adult stem cell treatment clinics, is targeting medical tourists with plans to open in several countries.

Bioscience Americas and its scientific research partner the Global Institute of Stem Cell Therapy and Research are working on opening stem cell clinics in Colombia and Costa Rica soon. It also seeks to open clinics in Brazil and Chile and on Native America tribal land within the USA.

The company has developed a medical tourism marketing programme t designed to attract a significant patient count. Eric Stoffers explains, “The company’s mission to lead a worldwide healthcare revolution in the delivery of treatment protocols.

Our stem cell procedures treat autoimmune diseases without surgery or medication. We aim to take treatments and therapies out of the lab and bring them to the marketplace.

Our marketing plan includes affiliated and unaffiliated hospital referrals, physician referrals, medical professional continuing education programmes, patient support networks, and an expanded social media presence.”

The Bioscience Americas/GIOSTAR partnership treats autoimmune diseases using regeneration technologies. More than 4000 patients have already been treated at the first and so far only, GIOSTAR clinic at Gujarat in India.

The new clinics target both the South American and North American markets. The vision is to open clinics on all five continents.

NIGERIA: Nigeria Exports Medical Tourists With The President

Vice President, Commonwealth Medical Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele Monday expressed disappointment at the news of President Muhammadu Buhari’s10-Day medical trip to London for an Ear, Nose and Throat, E.N.T, infection, saying, “it as a tragic blot on Nigeria’s collective professional and National image.”

President Muhammadu Buhari The former President, Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, who condemned frequent medical trip by government officials, said Nigeria has suffered a great loss to medical tourism in recent past.

“I am very constrained to state that this foreign medical trip flies in the face of the Federal Government’s earlier declaration of her resolve to halt the embarrassing phenomenon of outward medical tourism, which as at the end of the year 2013 had led to a humongous capital flight of about $1billion dollars, particularly from expenses incurred by political and public office holders and their accompanying aides, whose foreign medical trips most of which are unnecessary, were financed with tax payers’ resources”, he said.

Osahon who advised the president Buhari to live by example at curbing medical tourism and saving Nigerians this great loss incurred through numerous trips abroad for medication stated that the President has lost a golden opportunity to assert his change mantra through a clear demonstration of leadership by example, by staying back to receive medical treatment in Nigeria.

He added that receiving treatment in Nigeria would inspire confidence in the health sector which currently boasts of medical experts that favourably compare with medical experts anywhere in the world, if not better.

“Mr. President should make a clear public pronouncement on his resolve to show leadership by example with respect to the utilization of the medical expertise and facilities that abound in Nigeria by him and other members of the Federal Executive Council, particularly in concrete expression of section 46 of the National Health Act which seeks to address the abuse of tax payers’ resources through frivolous foreign medical travels embarked upon by political and public office holders”.

He said: “It is on record that most public and political office holders who seek foreign medical care abroad are handled by Nigerian trained doctors in foreign lands particularly in the United Kingdom which has over 3000 Nigerian trained medical doctors, United States of America with over 5000 Nigerian trained medical doctors, amongst other foreign countries, most of whom left the shores of Nigeria on account of government’s perennial failure to address the various push and pull factors which have consistently driven this yearly brain drain phenomenon in Nigeria.

“Available records show that last year alone, 637 medical doctors emigrated due largely to poor working conditions and health facilities, insecurity, unpredictable and poor funding of Residency Training Programme, uncompetitive wages and job dissatisfaction.”

The former NMA president said; “Without prejudice to the expert recommendation of President’s Personal Physician and the ENT specialist said to have examined and treated him in Abuja, I consider it a national shame of immense proportions that Mr. President had to be recommended for foreign medical care despite the presence of over 250 ENT specialists and professors in Nigeria, as well as a National Ear Centre located in Kaduna state.”

He recommended that the presidency should consider other options such as inviting a consortium of Nigerian trained ENT specialists in Nigeria to Abuja to re-evaluate and treat him.

If it is determined that the medical expertise is not available in Nigeria, any identified Nigerian trained ENT specialist practicing anywhere in the world should be invited to Abuja for re-evaluating and treating him. “If it is a case where the health facilities/equipment are unavailable then the President should have used his current medical situation, though unfortunate, to commence the Federal Government’s plan to re-equip Nigerian hospitals with modern state-of-the art health facilities, by ordering for the needed medical equipment to enable the locally available Nigerian trained ENT specialists to attend to him, and thereafter use same facilities to attend to other Nigerians with similar conditions.

“Indeed, it will be a win-win situation for Nigeria as Mr. President will not only get managed with the imported medical facilities and expertise; he would save Nigeria the capital flight that would result from his planned foreign medical trip.