Untapped potential: Unlocking Kenya's medical tourism future

Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, attracts patients from several African countries. [File, Standard]

Medical tourism, which is actively being practised across the world, but lacklustre in Kenya is a concept worth embracing locally.

Medical tourism is the practice of obtaining medical services outside your country. It was established in the United Kingdom and other European countries many years ago. The concept of medical tourism has risen so rapidly to become one of the world’s fastest growing industries.

And as the quality of medical treatments in countries, such as India, Thailand, Poland and Indonesia amongst other nations outside Africa, has grown in reputation, so has accessibility to world class facilities, such as the ones in France.

Surveys show many Kenyans are now seeking medical treatments in countries that offer the best facilities and quality treatments affordably.

Many local agents that link patients with hospitals outside Africa have come up to assist offshore healthcare seekers access cost-effective and timely services. For United States patients, seeking treatment abroad as been as a result of prohibitive costs of medicare in the country, as well as increasingly long wait lists. Even British patients find the cost of treatment a serious nightmare.

Investigations show that many local healthcare institutions have partnered with a number of hospitals abroad, that offer a wide range of surgical services, such as orthopaedic, cardiac, gastric and cosmetic.

Local doctors observe that the reason people choose to go abroad for specialised treatments is due to international standard services, including superior medical equipment than most of what is available in most African countries.

These facilities meet the stringent criteria for professionalism, competency, cleanliness and above all, safety.  Agents taking patients to such hospitals abroad must ensure that all staff in those hospitals speak good English, are properly trained and have insurance.

Research shows that the best and most affordable cosmetic surgeries are reputed to be in Costa Rica. The agents and local partners in the business of medical tourism are giving patients specific details of these facilities, how much they charge and even organise their travel to those countries.

Medical tourism is not entirely a new concept. South Africa was the first in Africa to practice it. Apart from high quality medical care, lower cost than home, and long waiting times frustrations, other patients travel due to lack of specialised facilities and expertise in home countries. Then there are select medical tourists who combine vacation with elective or plastic surgery.

“We are paid by the hospitals abroad to bring, as well as help patients negotiate for favourable treatment fees,” says a local agent who works in partnership with a Canadian based hospital.

 “In addition to arranging surgery, we also organise flights, book hotels, site-seeing and help with passport and visa applications. Our goal is to make the process as easy as possible for our clients. She reveals that her firm is currently organising for 50 people to travel to South Africa, India and Israel for various treatments.

Countries promoting medical tourism at the moment, include Cuba, Costa Rica, Hungary, India, Israel, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Belgium, Thailand, Poland and Singapore, among others. South Africa specialises in medical safaris with a stopover for plastic surgeries, nose jobs and a chance to see lions and elephants.

“India is considered a leading country in promoting medical tourism and has moved to an area of medical outsourcing in which sub-contractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems,” says Narshibhai Ghedia a beneficiary of medical tourism in India.

Ghedia adds that treatment in India is cheaper compared to Kenya; “With the growth of medical related travels and aggressive marketing, Bangkok in Thailand and New Delhi in India are major centres for medical tourism. Most of the hospitals in the two major cities offer services in many languages for easy communications with clients.”

Cuba attracts patients from Canada, Germany, and Italy. Malaysia attracts patients from surrounding southeast Asian countries, Jordan serves patients from middle east, while Israel caters for both Jewish patients and nearby countries. Firms involved in medical tourism usually engage with medical practitioners, health management organisations and insurance firms to see how best they can work out packages for uninsured people who have medical challenges and who wish to go abroad for specialised and cost-effective treatment.

Further motivation to undertake medical tourism may come due to the fact that insurance does not cover the cost of certain major conditions or imposes restrictions on the choice of facility, surgeons or prosthetics to be used.

The newest and fastest-growing area of medical tourism is a visit to the dentist where costs often not covered by basic insurance and by some extended insurance policies.

India, Thailand and Hungary attract patients who want to combine a filling, extraction or root canal with a vacation. The appeal of this phenomenon is driven by cost savings as high as 90 per cent, depending on the procedure and the country in which it is performed and virtually no wait times.

Official statistics on medical tourism have not been collected, but an estimated 250,000 foreigners sought medicare in 2024 in India alone. This number is growing at a rate of about 15 per cent annually. It is estimated that by the end of 2025, this will be a Sh2.6 trillion (US$ 20 billion) industry.

Medical experts say the benefits of medical tourism go beyond the cost. “It ensures clients get the best bargain. They also receive excellent medical care, including higher physician-to-patient ratio than commonly available in Kenya,” says Dr Nicholas Okoth, a Kenyan medical doctor working as an expatriate in South Sudan.

Some services that are not yet approved by local regulatory authorities, such as certain hip replacement survey techniques, are available overseas.

“We do not take away patients from their doctors. We only attend to a specific problem and once this has been sorted out, they return to their clinicians for follow-ups and monitoring. We also make sure the patient’s doctor and our physicians are in constant touch,” says one agent in medical tourism business.

In Britain and Canada, the waiting period for hip replacement surgery can take a year or more while in Thailand and India a patient can be in the operating room the morning after getting off a plane.

The cost of surgery in India, Thailand, South Africa can be one-tenth of what it is in United States or Western Europe, sometimes even less than one-tenth.

A heart valve replacement that would cost Sh20 million or more in the US and UK, for example, goes Sh950,000 in India and that includes round of trip airfare and a brief vacation package. This can cost Sh750,000 in Kenya, says Dr Okoth.

Similarly, metalfree dental bridge worth sh 600,000 in the US costs sh 54,000 in India and sh 100,000 locally.  A knee replacement in Thailand with days of physical therapy costs about one fifth of what it would be in the United States while in Kenya it would cost about Sh850,000. Lasik eye surgery worth Sh440,000 in the US is available in many Asian countries for Sh75,000.

Cosmetic surgery savings are even greater. A full facelift that would cost Sh1.9 million in US costs about Sh125,000 in South Africa and about Sh1 million in Kenya. According to the Kenyan medical community, the country has not aggressively sold herself as a medical tourism centre despite having very good facilities.

Kenyatta National Hospital, which has some of the best trained physicians, attracts patients from several African countries.

The country also has some of the best private and public hospitals in Africa that offer the best treatments, attracting foreigners. Kenya needs different approach if medical tourism is thrive locally. 

The country’s best hospitals should be accredited so that they can tap into the global health trade. Personnel and some of the facilities in some third world countries that are treating first world citizens indicate little effort has been spared to make them reach the level of those found in the developed countries.