Medical Tourism: laws, policies and challenges in Malaysia / Hazally Jali ... [et al.]

The Malaysian government in its 9 Malaysian plan has identified medical tourism as potential new growth for the national economy. Presently, medical tourism depends on
tort system to handle in cases of medical negligence. For a medical claim to succeed, the patient has to overcome the substantive law as well as the procedural elements embedded in the system where the entire process will take years. Medical Act 1971, Limitation Act 1953 (Act 254) and Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958 need to be analyzed in order to further enhanced the legal framework to assist medical tourism. Apart from that, the issue arises as to promotion of the medical tourism with the focus on in-bounds patients would deprive locals from best services from the medical fraternity and not to mention the affordable fees. Another aspect is whether health services in Malaysia can meet the demand of sufficient standard required by world class standard which requires accreditation with certification bodies especially with the promotion of Complimentary Alternative Medicine (CAM). Hence, the development of medical tourism should be addressed from all aspects to ensure the medical tourism would bring tremendous benefits to the country as well as to the foreign patients in terms services, facilities and legal protection.