Economy

Tourism, Rx for the rich

By Shan Juan (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-04 09:52

There are risks

 

Julian Stainton, chief executive of the Western Provident Association, one of the UK's leading health insurers, gets a taste of traditional Chinese medicine. He received a tuina massage in the fall in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. [Photo / China Daily]

Not all countries that are going after medical tourists may be safe, Stephano said, because accreditation and other measures of quality vary widely.

"Our association provides education and messages about global choices for medical services for the people to enable them to decide on their own," she said.

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Some risks are common to tourism in general, experts warned, but others involve such issues as limited access to quality post-operative care and varied standards for healthcare around the world.

Qiu Renzong, a bioethics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, raised the possibility of major ethical issues such as the illegal trade of organs and tissues for transplant.

China banned transplant tourism and trade of organs for transplant in 2007.

Qiu also said that while stem cell treatment attracts many medical tourists, "in fact it is recognized by Chinese health authorities as on clinical trial, thus should not be widely practiced clinically".

Qiu urged the government to strengthen regulation over medical tourism even if it's still at its early stage.