Connell John
University of Sydney, Australia.
Asia Pac Viewp. 2011;52(3):260-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2011.01454.x.
Access to health care in developing countries, the main destinations of medical tourists, is notoriously uneven, and often becoming more so. Medical tourism, urban bias and privatisation have combined to exacerbate this trend. This is exemplified in both Thailand and India, where regional areas have been disadvantaged by the migration of health-care workers to hospitals focusing on medical tourism, neo-liberal national financial provision for medical tourism (and related tourism campaigns) and evidence of trickle-down gains is lacking. Medical tourism challenges rather than complements local health care providers, distorts national health care systems, and raises critical national economic, ethical and social questions.
在作为医疗旅游主要目的地的发展中国家，获得医疗保健服务的机会极不均衡，而且这种不均衡往往还在加剧。医疗旅游、城市偏向和私有化共同加剧了这一趋势。泰国和印度都是例证，在这些国家，由于医护人员流向专注于医疗旅游的医院、新自由主义的国家对医疗旅游的财政拨款（以及相关旅游宣传活动），而又缺乏涓滴效应收益的证据，导致偏远地区处于不利地位。医疗旅游对当地医疗服务提供者构成挑战而非补充，扭曲国家医疗体系，并引发重大的国家经济、伦理和社会问题。
