Seeking Treatment in a Neighboring Country, What Are the Ethical Aspects? [Raboan Discussion Forum]

On Wednesday (29/03),  Center for Medical Bioethics and Humanities held the Raboan Discussion Forum again. This time, the topic raised was Ethical Aspects When Seeking Treatment In A Neighboring Country. The speaker of the discussion was dr. Effiana with the moderator dr. Tiea Khatija.

Every year the number of Indonesian people seeking treatment in neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand increases. In this discussion, the object of discussion is the city of Pontianak which is near Kuching city in Malaysia.

There are four terms for medical treatment abroad namely health tourism, medical tourism, medical travel (feeling that doctors cannot handle the disease in their origin city), and medical exile (considered as refugees). Nowadays, generally, it’s more common to call it a medical trip.

According to Ormond, two reasons can motivate people to seek treatment abroad: dissatisfaction (dissatisfaction) and limited access or services (disfranchisement). It is also influenced by two factors such as the pull factor perspective (availability of world-class health facilities/services in the country you want to go to) and the push factor perspective (dissatisfaction with health facilities/services in the origin city).

There are several phenomena of medical travel carried out by Indonesian people (especially in Pontianak), namely having experience of being misdiagnosed by doctors in their country of origin, not trusting medical personnel in their country of origin, having experience of being students abroad, having foreign spouses, and working immigrant.

Those who seek treatment abroad have a higher trust in doctors in the destination country. Some of them had satisfying experiences of being treated abroad so that if they got sick again in the future, they would return for treatment there. Feeling that the price is the same as going to Java for treatment, they can already travel together. They also have experience trading in the country, so they seek treatment there because they feel more familiar with the environment.

Medical trips carried out by Indonesian people have a wide impact, so in deciding to seek treatment abroad, careful consideration of ethical issues/aspects is required to carry out the treatment appropriately.