China announced that it was investigating whether 17 Japanese tourists had received illegal kidney and liver transplants in China.
China has banned all transplants for foreigners because an estimated 1.5 million Chinese are on waiting lists for transplants. The ban was issued May 1, 2007. "China strongly opposes organ transplant tourism," the Ministry of Health said in a statement on its Web site, adding that the hospitals and medical personnel "who carried out the organ transplants against the rules will be severely dealt with according to the law."
Chung-Ang University Medical Center is working to attract foreign patients who are seeking high-quality surgery at relatively low costs. Administrators are now in the process of upgrading the hospital's quality of care. The hospital could also begin working with foreign insurance firms.
Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa resigned this week amid criticism for slurring and yawning during a news conference over the weekend at the G-7 meeting in Rome. This is posing serious problems for Japanese officials, as the global recession and the country's economy worsen.
Research by the International Society for Stem Cell Research shows that increasingly, foreign healthcare clinics are adverstising unproven and costly stem cell therapies to medical tourists. The organization established a task force with healthcare officials from 13 countries in an effort to develop guidelines for clinics offering experimental therapy without appropriate transparency, oversight or patient protections.
Chinese authorities are investigating whether 17 Japanese tourists had received illegal kidney and liver transplants in China. The country in 2007 banned all transplants for foreigners, called "organ tourists," since approximately 1.5 million Chinese are on waiting lists for transplants.
Malaysia has begun making a name for itself in the medical tourism realm, offering affordable yet sophisticated healthcare in Asia. The number of foreigners visiting the country for medical tourism has more than tripled since 2003, with 341,288 seeking care there in 2007. Local private Malaysian hospitals now offer counters, experienced staff, medical packages, and special arrangements to cater to foreign patients.