Medical Tourism: The Market Vs. Morality

When the floor was opened up for questioning during the year-end economic briefing of the Philippine Central Bank, an indignant member of the Philippine stock exchange asked Socioeconomic Secretary Augusto B. Santos why the government was supporting medical transplants as part of their aggressive medical tourism plan. There are two main concerns that stem from this. The first and more obvious one is that the government will condone a depletion of Filipino organs for Filipino recipients in favor of higher paying foreign visitors. The second is that swapping kidneys and retinas for money is already disturbingly regular among the impoverished majority. The introduction of foreign buyers could escalate this trend into even more alarming levels.

The Philippine medical tourism program will feature a mix of traditional health care services and indigenous alternative therapies in luxury resort environments. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that local high quality medical and surgical procedures are 30 to 50 percent cheaper than operations in developed countries. The program is expected to earn $300 million in its first year and about a billion dollars for each of the following five years. The government also hopes that it can help reverse the trend of medic migration from the country.

Is organ transplant arbitrage necessary to compete against countries such as India and Thailand? Should the Department of Tourism take charge or should the Department of Health? What does the rest of the world think?