Medical Tourism from the Perspectives of Industry Players: How Critical is Government Support?

Abstract

The present study aims to derive the role of the government in developing Malaysian medical tourism. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were analysed thematically using Atlas.ti version 8. The study derived four main challenges facing private hospitals and healthcare facilitators, which are regulatory burden, scarcity of health professionals, poor collaboration with state government and low cooperation from other agencies. These challenges then drew the government’s role accordingly. Hence, this article strongly calls for regular dialogues between government agencies, private hospitals and healthcare facilitators to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page about developing the industry. Keywords: Medical Tourism, Private Hospitals, Healthcare Facilitators, Government  eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6iSI4.2912