Medical travellers’ perspectives in selecting in-patient services at selected private hospitals in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

The Sri Lankan government has clear plans to develop medical tourism as an industry. Availability of high-quality medical professionals and accredited hospitals has encouraged medical travellers to come to Sri Lanka and to expand the medical tourism industry in the country. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to describe medical travellers’ perspectives in seeking in-patient services at selected four private hospitals in Sri Lanka. Foreign national in-patients (n = 252) were interviewed using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 93.25%. The majority (68.1%) were Maldivians followed by Indians (20.4%) and 51.1% sought surgical care. Availability of high-quality medical professionals (94.2%) and accredited hospitals (81.3%), easy visa (90.2%) were top reasons to select Sri Lanka. Medical travellers faced difficulties in communication (37.4%), transport (31.9%), accommodation (57%) and finding quality food (41.7%). The study recommends improvement of infrastructure and support services for medical travellers and that private hospitals obtain international accreditation to improve medical tourism potentials.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical tourism
• medical travel
• medical traveller
• medical destination
• Sri Lanka

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge the support extended by the Directors and the staff of the selected private hospitals in conducting this study.

Disclosure statement

We wish to inform that we have no financial interest or benefit arising from the direct applications of the research.