Need for establising an infrastructure in health tourism in Turkey and a survey for health institutions

Health tourism can be defined as the mobility of people who seektreatment through travel and accommodation away from their place ofresidence. In this thesis health tourism for medical treatment purposes inhealth institutions is analyzed.For purposes of assessing how much hospitals were prepared forhealth tourism, analyzing their needs, and offering proposals for alternativesolutions, a questionnaire was administered to the directors of 282 public,private, and university hospitals in nine cities with the highest numbers ofhealth tourists.This study found that foreign patients used Turkey?s hospital servicesespecially in summer (June-July-August) (%69,5), mostly for respiratorydiseases (%43,3), and generally came from Germany (%64,9). Primaryreasons of foreign patients for choosing Turkey found to be price and climate.Public hospitals were found to be less prepared for health tourism thanprivate hospital as far as infrastructure is concerned. Units exclusive forhealth tourism were reported by 20.1% of public hospitals and 52.1% ofprivate hospitals. 35.6% of public hospitals employed staffs who speakforeign language compared to 65.3% of private hospitals. Clinics specificallydesigned for foreign patients were available In 0.7% of public hospitals and14.9% of private hospitals. 15.4% of public hospitals offered transportationfacilities for foreign patients compared to 51.2% of private hospitals. Todevelop health tourism in Turkey, target market should be determinedcorrectly; intersectoral cooperation should be accomplished; hospitals shouldimprove their infrastructure, hospitals which will provide services for healthtourism should be determined and government-supported advertisementactivities should be made.