Malta is one of the countries where more Britons are seeking treatment to escape from long NHS waiting lists and the “rising threat” of hospital superbugs. Going as far as India, Malaysia and South Africa for major operations, more than 70,000 Britons will be having treatment abroad this year for major heart surgery, hip operations and cataracts.
Malta is among 48 countries listed in the Treatment Abroad website which offers 112 foreign hospitals where medical tourists can book quick, safe and affordable treatment through the internet.
Waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment in the United Kingdom can exceed 18 months.
“Medical tourism is high value tourism but we need to make sure it is properly regulated to ensure high professional and ethical standards if we want it to succeed,” Dr Frank Portelli, the chief executive of St Philip’s Hospital, says.
It is not just private hospitals which cater for foreign patients. The Fortina spa hotel in Sliema has a state of the art dental clinic with which the hotel wants to attract NHS patients. Fortina owner Michael Zammit Tabone also heads the Malta Tourism Authority’s medical tourism segment.
Dr Frank Portelli warns that the sector will still require more regulation where tourists who fall ill while on holiday in Malta could be targeted by “unethical and unprofessional” practices.
He cites as an example how a doctor and a non-registered medical centre can easily damage Malta’s image, when there is ineffective regulation. “In my view every clinic has to be registered and licensed, and any service they are allowed to provide must be clear to potential patients. Presently there is a lacuna in the law since anyone can set up a clinic, and provided they do not provide a ‘listed’ service, no licence and no inspection is required.
“This is allowing ‘medical cowboys’ to operate, and needless to say tax evasion is therefore also rife.”
The UK is also Malta’s biggest market of ‘imported patients’, and according to Portelli, a rapidly growing phenomenon due to long NHS waiting lists and the high risk of MRSA in NHS hospitals in Britain.
“Malta has been late in promoting itself as a medical tourist centre whilst countries like India, as well as Belgium and now Poland, Hungary have been working hard and have established a head lead on us,” Portelli says, who says the tourism authorities have been slow on the uptake.
“I have already expressed my concern that the Malta Tourism Authority has been extremely amateurish in this regard. In my view the Malta Tourism Authority does not have the expertise in the medical field and presently they are simply dabbling – if they continue to be allowed to dabble in this field they will cause an unmitigated disaster.”
He says it should be Malta Enterprise, the investment promotion arm of the government, to take charge of medical tourism. “Malta Enterprise should integrate the key players so that we as a country can provide the highest standards of medical care to foreign patients – only in this way will Malta regain its reputation of ‘nurse of the Mediterranean’ as we had in the past during the evacuation of Gallipoli in 1915 and obviously earlier in the times of the Knight Hospitallers.”
Private healthcare has also offered foreign patients high standards of medical care and the added advantage of English-speaking medical staff. “Most of our doctors are simply first-class not only in expertise but also in their ethical behaviour. It is paramount that we get this right. Lost reputations are not easily regained,” Portelli says.