Moralities in international medical travel: moral logics in the narratives of Indonesian patients and locally-based facilitators in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This paper views international medical travel through the lens of medical migrations and contextualises it within regional historical linkages. Drawing from fieldwork with staff, facilitators, and Indonesian patients in two Malaysian private hospitals, it frames international medical travel as a moral endeavour, and aims to uncover the premises that make this endeavour meaningful and desirable. Understanding moralities as a field of embodied predispositions created in the dynamics of social interaction, we argue that a strand of moral logic underlies the practice of medical travel. We call this the morality of need, which dictates that people do whatever they can for themselves and their families’ medical needs, including travelling abroad, as well as ‘help others’ by giving information and accompanying them overseas for their medical needs. This moral logic co-exists in tension with a morality of business that accepts the legitimacy of generating earnings from people’s medical needs. Within this moral framework, international medical travel is seen as a necessary practice for sustaining health and well-being, and extends beyond the family as social and moral support for others facing similar predicaments.

KEYWORDS:

• International medical travel
• medical tourism
• Malaysia
• Indonesian patients
• moralities

Acknowledgements

Ethical clearance for this study was obtained from the University of Queensland Behavioural Social Science Ethical Review Committee, the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee and the Medical Research and Ethics Committee, Ministry of Health Malaysia. We thank the hospitals, staff and patients for their participation in this research, and numerous individuals who helped us along the way.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Pseudonyms are used for the study hospitals and all interviewees.

2 The first author and a research assistant. In 2015, the first author was accompanied by a Chinese Indonesian field assistant.

3 Not audio-recorded, with the exception of the interview with the medical representative of Hospital A.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Australian government through an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant [grant number DP 1094895] and by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore through a supplementary grant.