The Ministry of Health and Welfare on June 27 said 146,000 people from overseas visited Korea last year to seek medical treatment. The photo shows a foreign patient receiving hanbang (traditional Korean medicine) at Nasaret International Hospital in Incheon. (Incheon Tourism Organization)
By Aisylu Akhmetzianova and Yoon Sojung
Despite the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, the number of patients from abroad who visited Korea for medical treatment last year rose 24.6%.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on June 27 said 146,000 patients from abroad visited Korea for treatment last year, up 24.6% from 117,000 in 2020.
This was because more such patients last year came for Korea’s advanced medical treatment despite quarantine and social distancing measures than in 2020, the ministry said.
Since Korea began promoting medical tourism in 2009, a combined 3.02 million foreign patients have sought treatment in the country.
Last year, patients from 191 countries visited Korea. Those from the U.S. and China accounted for 39% (57,000) of the figure, and another 11,000 came from Vietnam (7.4%) and 9,000 from Mongolia (6.3%).
By medical specialty, 48,000 (24.6%) received treatment in internal medicine, followed by general health examination (10.1%), plastic surgery (9.2%) and dermatology (6.6%). Compared to 2020, the number of patients rose in most departments led by general health examination (278.9%), internal medicine (64.7%) and ophthalmology (55.2%). The number of patients in plastic surgery went up slightly 0.6% and that in dermatology decreased 22.3%.
Yoon Chansik, the ministry’s director-general for international cooperation, said, “The business of attracting foreign patients has a positive impact not only on medical treatment revenue but also on tourism, and is a high value-added sector that leads to job creation,” adding, “As the COVID-19 situation has recently grown stable both in and out of the country, we expect more overseas patients to come to Korea.”
This chart shows the number of overseas patients who visited Korea for medical treatment from 2009-21. (Ministry of Health and Welfare)
aisylu@korea.kr
