Medical tourism to Thailand from Oman on the rise

Muscat: Medical tourism to Thailand is on the rise, with one hospital reporting 20 Omani patients every day.
Bumrungrad Hospital treats Omani medical tourists for all kinds of conditions and even has a wing for Muslim visitors and special dietary rules.
“We have at least 20 Omani inpatients, who are staying with us for treatment every day,” Dr Erik Fleischman, assistant international medical director at the Bumrungrad hospital told the Times of Oman.
The hospital receives patients for cancer treatments, spine surgery, joint replacement, cataract surgery and they also has cases related to paediatrics and neurology, according to Fleischman.
“Most of the Omani patients come here for joint replacement and spinal surgeries. We are also receiving many cancer patients from Oman,” he added.
According to the Bumrungrad hospital statistics, around 26,000 patients from Oman were treated at the hospital last year.
“Most of the patients were in the age group of between 50 and 80 years,” Fleischman revealed.
Approximately 1,123,410 patients from all around the world visited the Bumrungrad hospital for treatment last year.
“Oman is the first country to have an agreement to develop a partnership with us and it is continuing for the last 20 years,” Fleischman asserted.
Bumrungrad was the hospital, which diagnosed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) in two patients from Oman last year and at the beginning of this year.
Both the patients, who were in their 70s, survived the disease because of their treatment, according to Fleischman.
“News on Mers has affected Thai tourism and our business significantly; it took more than three weeks to overcome the crisis,” he stated. The hospital has a special wing, which consists of 90 members that take care of the Arab patients in the hospital.
Halal food
“We provide special halal food to our Arab patients and we also have prayer rooms for male and female patients,” Fleischman said.
“We also provide special arrangements during Ramadan for Muslim patients,” he added.
The unmatchable expertise of the Bumrungrad makes the hospital different from others, according to Fleischman.
“The one thing which makes us different from others is our expertise and we cannot recreate the same is the reason why we are not thinking of an expansion into other parts of the world,” he said.
The hospital has more than 1,300 physicians, who have got extensive overseas training, gathered experience from countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan and Belgium.
“We also have 55 specialised and sub-specialised doctors and many part-time doctors, who are professors at top teaching hospitals,” he asserted.
The hospital also has more nurses to take care of their patients.
“We are in the 6th position in the world in terms of hospital technology and we can match the expertise and technologies in the US or UK, but we are not as expensive as them,” he added.
Speaking about visas for patients, Fleischman explained, “We can extend the patients’ visa with a doctors certificate and we have a special centre for that; an immigration officer is available there every Saturday.”
The hospital consists of 580 inpatient rooms, 19 operation theatres, and 27 specialty centres.