Medical Tourism in Kenya

Traveling to foreign countries for medical purposes has become a new trend nowadays. Most people travel for medical care because of affordable prices and higher quality of care.

Kenya is making its name in the region as a preferred destination for medical tourism. The country is becoming a giant medical tourism destination for East and Central African citizens.

The country offers quality medical care in different fields such as cardiology, spine surgery, dentistry, dermatology, obstetrics, gynecology, etc.

In recent years, Kenya’s largest medical facility, Kenyatta National Hospital, and private institutions such as Pathway International, Apollo Information Center, Nairobi, and Aga Khan Hospitals, have served high-profile patients from Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With high-quality technology and facilities in the region, many patients in East Africa now prefer Kenya for medical purposes because it is nearer home for the same medical treatment they seek abroad.

Four Pillars of the Health Sector

• Information, surveillance, and research: There is always one focus of advancement, to improve the quality of human life. Health is the most important aspect where regular advancement is required. Information is the key to the health system, i.e., collecting every little detail from clinics, hospitals, drug departments, people, etc., and tracking new symptoms and disease before it causes significant problems.

In common, surveillance works best when a wide range of sources are coordinated in a framework incorporating location, observing, examination, and responses.

Statistics are essential to overseeing public health administrations, distinguishing health patterns and trends, and apportioning assets proficiently.

• Research and development: For any country, R&D is important in developing new technologies and improving things regularly. Developing new methods to treat disease, new techniques for prevention, and finding better methods to improve health care is the main work of R&D. Investigate may show superior ways to train and persuade medical staff and plan approaches to hold highly skilled staff.

 It can evaluate diverse ways of mobilizing and designating open monetary resources for well-being and improve understanding of how incentives encourage or discourage medical innovation.

• Health service management: Whereas nations regularly center on expanding the amount of well-being care— for the occasion, the number of immunizations or discussions or the rates of coverage—health care can be futile, inefficient, or indeed harmful if it isn’t fitting for the specific condition and steady with the best therapeutic knowledge.

 In this way, paying consideration to the quality of health care isn’t an extravagance that, as it were, high-income nations can afford, but another column of the well-being service system that contains a profound impact on the cost-effectiveness and value of intercessions.

Element on which quality of health service management depends:

1. Safety of patients
2. Providing care as soon as possible

iii. Efficiency and productivity without wasting any resources

1. Equality, i.e., without any gender, location, ethnicity, or locality

• Human resources: Specialized advance is frequently related to sophisticated modern equipment, such as MRI gadgets and CT scanners, or with new drugs, such as immunizations and anticoagulants, but the specialized advance is additionally embodied in progressed aptitudes to anticipate, analyze, and treat illnesses and injuries. Thus speculations among the individuals who give well-being care administrations are critical for accomplishing advance against illness and injury.

 Experiments in workforce administration and organizational change may result in superior ways to enroll, hold, and convey health workers in the future.

Kenya is fulfilling all the necessary requirements and becoming one of the countries where tourism is increasing because of medical advancements. Almost every treatment facility is available in Kenya, is cost-effective, has a high success rate, and is equipped with modern technologies.

Common Medical Treatments in Kenya

The patients who visit Kenya for medical treatments are usually from Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and some from as far as Zambia, Malawi, and Congo.

The common medical treatments they seek in the country include:

• IVF:

Kenya is one of the countries where major tourist seeks IVF because of its low cost and high success rate. According to research, about 70% of people traveling look for IVF in Kenya. Aga Khan University Hospital is one of the leading IVF centers where 3 to 4 cycles are carried out each week.

• Cancer treatment:

As we all know, cancer is the third most killing disease in the world, and the cure is costly. Kenya is growing in cancer treatment facilities and providing better results at a low cost than western countries.

• Open-heart surgery:

Heart disease remains at the top in the most unpredictable and dangerous. Thousands of people die because of this. In Kenya, open heart surgery is very cost-effective and is a good destination to get some high-class facilities when it comes to heart problems.

• Neurology:

In Kenya, there are some best Neurosurgeons with expertise in providing a wide range of brain medical treatments, from brain tumor evaluation and minimal rehabilitation for spinal cord injury to minimally invasive surgery. Some epilepsy hospitals are available in Kenya, providing a great success rate and saving a lot of patients from its ill effects.

• Kidney transplant:

Kidney transplantation facilities increase in Kenya at a much faster rate. People from all over the world come to Kenya for kidney-related treatment. In recent few years, the costs of kidney transplant surgery in Kenya have come down as the levels of skill and number of facilities go up.

• Eye surgery:

Eyes problems increase with age and are one of the basic needs. Kenya provides some of the best eye surgery success rates at a much lower cost. Kenya is one of the few nations in the developing world to offer the negligibly intrusive customized Trans-Epithelial No-touch (cTEN) laser technique.

Reasons for Growing Medical Tourism in Kenya

Medical tourists leave their homes to seek medical treatment at an affordable price without compromising the quality. Medical tourists, mainly from East Africa, are attracted to Kenya because of its world-class facilities at a competitive price.

Healthcare costs are rising in Europe and in the US, which makes more people travel to other countries for treatment. This situation gives Kenya an opportunity to grow the medical industry even further.

The country has a good mixture of public and private provision, with around 60% of primary healthcare facilities run by private or faith-based organizations, plus a growing number of good-quality private hospitals.

Here we have mentioned the primary reasons why medical tourists prefer Kenya:

• Cost Effective Treatment:

Previously, the costs of some treatments were high in Kenya as compared to India. For instance, a kidney transplant in Kenya can cost up to 2000USD, while the same treatment in India was 17000USD. But now, the costs have started to come down as the number of facilities increasing.

 The affordable costs of treatments are attracting numerous tourists to Kenya. Government and private partners are coming together to improve healthcare facilities and increase the number of hospitals, which will enhance medical tourism more.

• International Healthcare Providers:

Kenya has several international medical experts from around the world. Some highly skilled and experienced doctors from countries such as India have permanently shifted to Kenya, while others split their time between Kenya and their country.

 These doctors have decades of experience in their respective fields, which makes the procedure safer and more effective. Years of experience and a large number of successful treatments are the keys to trusting medical facilities and doctors. Kenya has become one of those countries which are giving high success rates.

• Healthcare Facilities:

Private healthcare facilities are increasingly set up in Kenya for better services. These healthcare facilities are being set up by international partnerships. The popular Aga Khan University Hospital is the first hospital in East Africa to receive the JCI accreditation to perform world-class treatments.

 Kenya and its development partners have invested in bringing this mission to reality, striving to extend health services to the country’s most rural populations and to ensure that quality medical care, such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) services for HIV-positive patients, results in minimal costs for individuals in need of treatment.

• Best Eye Clinics:

Some of Africa’s most advanced eye clinics are in Nairobi. People from different countries such as Italy, Britain, and Norway travel to Kenya for treatment at clinics such as Eye & U Ophthalmic and Laser Eye Centre. Kenya comes in one of the few countries that offer minimally invasive laser eye surgery techniques.

• Close to Home:

For African citizens, Kenya is very close, which means they can receive excellent healthcare easily and fast. They can get back to their normal life as early as possible without the stress of long-haul travel. This is even more relevant for those who need ongoing care, as they are more likely to be able to continue working between treatments, which could dramatically reduce absenteeism.

• Growing investment:

The government is now focusing more and more on investing in the medical sector, like opening training institutes, new research, and development departments, labs and equipment, and infrastructure. With these, quality will boost, and the success rate will increase.

Final Thoughts

Medical tourism in Kenya is developing and definitely has a very bright future. The hospitals and doctors are growing in the country to provide the best treatments at an affordable price.

If you are planning to travel to Kenya, make sure to gather all the information about the hospitals and doctors for a hassle-free visit. Kenya will become a medical tourism hub, especially for African citizens.

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