Medical tourism and the Persian Gulf

Posted November 5th, 2007 by David Williams
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Dubai Healthcare City in the Persian Gulf expects one day to be a larger entity than the Harvard-affiliated medical complex here in Boston, according to today’s Wall Street Journal (Health-Care Building Booms in Persian Gulf). Medical equipment makers, construction and engineering firms, and academic medical centers from the US are salivating over the opportunity to soak up some petrodollars as Dubai and other Persian Gulf nations gorge on health care infrastructure. Why is this happening?

  • Much like Native Americans, whose metabolism adapted to a nomadic lifestyle and near-starvation diet, many of the kingdoms’ formerly nomadic residents live sedentary lifestyles and eat poorly. Obesity and diabetes epidemics are arriving in a hurry and the rulers are worried about how they’re going to deal with it.
  • Meanwhile, post-September 11, wealthy Arabs have been less inclined to travel to the US for care, and it’s become harder to get visas. Some patients have gone to places like Singapore and the Philippines instead.
  • Local patients would rather not travel to far-off places, especially where Arabic isn’t widely spoken and where religious necessities such as mosques and halal food aren’t available.


The article also says Dubai is looking to attract medical tourists from other regions, but I don’t think this is terribly realistic. Healthcare City will struggle initially, especially at the human resources level. I have my doubts about the number of physicians who will want to make their careers there. It will take more than money to make Healthcare City an attractive environment and the Gulf will need to develop medical and nursing schools to feed the long-term need with local talent.

There is a nearby country with world-class medical care, modern infrastructure, a substantial Muslim population and where Arabic is an official language: Israel. Check out Hadassah Medical Center –for example– in Arabic, English, Hebrew or Russian.


Perhaps medical tourism can become a conduit to the normalization of relations, at least among private citizens.

Dubai's Potential

On November 20th, 2007 Farhan Abid says:

David,

I agree with you on a number of points, Dubai's goal of becoming a leader in Medical Tourism is a far fetched goal. Our company, Circle Life Health, was considering Dubai as an potential medical tourism destination but the cost advantage is simply not there. Some of Dubai's best hospitals are expensive even for American standards. but that is just one of the issues. The quality of healthcare professionals isn't up to par with places like India and Singapore.

So I strongly believe that the Healthcare city will serve the need of the middle east's local population and not the rest of the world.

Oh yeah and a warning to those who are planning on going there, watch out for the traffic.

 

www.circlelifehealth.com