Malaysia’s health tourism is undertaking a variety of measures to welcome the expected surge of people seeking medical treatment and therapies in its country. Malaysian hospital officials are quick to emphasize that their medical services, which includes modern treatment procedures in neurosurgery, urology, and orthopedics are if not comparable to, but better than those in some hospitals in Singapore as well as Thailand, India or the United States; noting that at least 10% of their health tourism clients comprised of Singaporeans way before the introduction of the elective overseas hospitalization.

One of Malaysia’s private hospitals has announced their ‘scheduled signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Australia’s Macquirie Neurosurgery’ to enable renowned surgeon, Dr. Micheal Morgan, to work exclusively with the hospital to provide the best high-end neurosurgical procedures. This development has served as an added boost to Malaysia’s health tourism.

Kuala Lumpur’s hospitals have initiated partnering with tour operators, airline companies and hotels to offer the health tourist a hassle-free, efficient and overall seamless travel between the health tourists country and Malaysia. They’ve gone so far as to even arrange ambulances from the airports to the hospital.

Malaysia is targeting new markets such as Vietnam, the Middle East, Cambodia, Europe, Canada and the United States. The Tourism Ministry has published a book series called ‘Patients Beyond Borders’ to promote Malaysia as a medical health destination globally with a special focus on the Canada and Europe clientele, who are faced with long waiting times for specialist appointments, medical screening, diagnostic testing, hospitalization and treatment or surgery.

Despite the challenging economic climate, health tourism still has an excellent positive outlook. According the the Abacus international, Malaysia’s health tourism industry is expected to be worth at least $4 billion by 2012. Studies show that a health tourist spends double the amount of normal tourist – $362 per day compared to $144 per day.