Ramírez de Arellano Annette B
Public Citizen Health Research Group, Washingm, DC, USA.
Int J Health Serv. 2007;37(1):193-8. doi: 10.2190/4857-468G-2325-47UU.
A growing number of patients from the United States and other developed countries are traveling abroad with the express purpose of obtaining health care, including elective surgery and long-term care. This trend is not innocuous. It can lead developing countries to emphasize technology-intensive tertiary care for foreigners at the expense of basic health care for their citizens. Moreover, it can exacerbate the brain drain from the public to the private sector. The examples of Thailand and India suggest the distorting effects of this trend and raise questions of social equity in the distribution of scarce resources.
越来越多来自美国和其他发达国家的患者出国就医，目的明确，包括进行择期手术和长期护理。这种趋势并非无害。它可能导致发展中国家以牺牲本国公民的基本医疗保健为代价，将重点放在为外国人提供技术密集型的三级医疗服务上。此外，这可能会加剧公共部门向私营部门的人才流失。泰国和印度的例子表明了这种趋势的扭曲影响，并引发了稀缺资源分配中社会公平性的问题。
