Health Tourism

What is Health Tourism? What are its types?

The concept of health tourism has developed in the world with the increase in health costs in the world, the fact that some treatments are not performed in their own countries, the increase in cooperation between countries, the convenience of transportation, the development of health service quality in different parts of the world.

Health tourism is the travelling of people to different countries for treatment purposes in order to receive health services.

Health Tourism is generally grouped under 4 main headings.

• Thermal Health Tourism

• Medical Tourism

• Elderly Tourism

• Disabled tourism

Health tourism aims to provide medical options to ensure the comfort of patients and their families. In parallel with the high level of education and welfare in developed countries, the provision of health services is also costly. In developed countries, the health needs of the ageing population and the share of health expenses are increasing day by day. Increasing expenditures of social security costs strain social security institutions. In order to overcome these difficulties, social security institutions and private insurance institutions in developed countries are making efforts to obtain low-cost health services by making package agreements with countries that offer quality medical services and are located nearby.

In recent years, tourists from all over the world have been travelling to Turkey for treatment purposes as Turkey offers health services at a level that can compete with the quality health services in developed countries. Especially after the 1990s, it has been observed that the private sector has made serious investments in health services in addition to public health services.

As a result of these developments, private health institutions that can compete with European standards have started to increase especially in big cities. The opening of these health facilities, which have high costs in terms of construction and operation, to foreign markets is becoming a necessity in order to reduce these costs. In addition, Turkey’s geographical location and its trained and educated manpower in the health sector are among the important advantages of Turkey in health tourism. As Private Family Hospital, we, as Private Avrupa Şafak Hospital, have taken part in health tourism in order to provide more economical and quality health services with our advanced technology and expert staff to patients who prefer our country for the protection, development and treatment of health.