By AJ de la Torre (The Freeman) Updated September 21, 2009 12:00 AM
CEBU, Philippines - The promotion of Cebu as a premier destination for medical tourism is slowly paying off with positive feedback from tourists and local and international guests being noted by the font liners of such effort.
Engr. Oscar Tuason, president of the Cebu Health and Wellness Council and the Administrator of the Cebu Doctors hospital shared that despite the financial crisis, medical tourists in Cebu surprisingly increased as opposed to what they were expecting.
Tuason said that especially these days, customers now give value to how much they spend at the same time making sure they get the quality they need at affordable prices.
He shared that in other countries, aside from higher payments, there are longer waiting lines for patients to undergo the medical procedure.
Tuason said that the patients see the greater importance of securing their health and not on the high status of the place they are treated like the accreditation that it has achieved.
He said that the accreditation in fact is not a basis of how it could attract the customers but it is mainly on the “availability of good quality services that will attract medical tourists.”
However, despite that Tuason said that the three major hospitals in Cebu, which are partners of the CHWC, are undergoing accreditation to further push for the expansions of the hospitals.
But Tuason said that this does not mean that if the hospitals will be accredited, this will gather more medical tourists.
“As long as they are happy and they feel guaranteed of the clinical procedures and services, they would go for it,” Tuason added.
The three hospitals in Cebu are undergoing processes for international accreditation but Tuason said that they are also aiming for the Philhealth accreditation to go side by side with the international accreditation.
Tuason said that the facilities of the hospitals in Cebu are also not behind the facilities from other leading countries as they are continually striving to stay on track in using state of the art facilities.
This is part of the efforts of the CHWC, said Tuason, which persistently advocates the many services that could be availed in Cebu like the medical services aside from the council’s effort to push the Spa and Wellness Tourism.
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