A typical image of the German summer: wealthy Arabs, together with their families, enjoy pleasant cool days in the city center, avoiding the heat in their homeland. Some people combine the pursuit of the beneficial, scheduling medical examinations or even some necessary treatments during their stay in Germany. After all, German doctors have an excellent reputation abroad.
For many clinics all this entailed significant revenue. But in the last two years, summer visitors have disappeared, thanks to a pandemic. The Berlin-based Vivantes group of clinics has seen so much decline in so-called “medical tourism” that it decided in March to abolish an entire wing of outpatient clinics.
“Medical”, but also “spa tourism”
For statistical purposes, the term “medical tourism” encompasses a very wide range of services: not just medical care per se, but also rehabilitation centers, spas or even wellness and wellness services. Mariam Asefi, from the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Vocational School, points out that, according to 2018 data, foreigners visiting Germany for medical services of all kinds leave revenues of 1.2 billion euros per year. In total, about 250,000 patients from 180 different countries are enrolled.
Instructions in Arabic at a hospital in Munich
One in three comes from the EU, most of them from neighboring Poland. As Mariam Asefi points out, in the last two years their number has been steadily declining, for many different reasons: Initially, restrictions were imposed on the arrival of travelers from abroad. Then the clinics themselves began to impose restrictions, so that they have a sufficient number of beds for permanent residents in times of pandemic. Now the war in Ukraine is restricting the arrival of patients from Russia. In recent years, some clinics have focused on Russian visitors, who are leaving a significant income. The same thing happened with the visitors from Arab countries. But recently, many countries in the Arabian Peninsula have been concluding bilateral agreements with other countries for the treatment of patients, says a representative of the Vivantes group.
“Time will tell”
A significant decrease in patients from abroad is recorded in all major cities in Germany. A spokesman for the University Clinic in Munich said: “The number of visitors from abroad is almost non-existent now”, but believes that “time will tell, if and how we will return to pre-crisis levels.” For her part, a spokesman for the University Clinic of Hamburg says that medical tourism has indeed shrunk in the last two years, not because demand has fallen, but because the clinic’s management has decided not to admit patients from abroad to periods of pandemic outbreaks.
Other clinics in Hamburg point out that it makes sense that the number of Russian patients has been significantly reduced, since they can not travel by direct flight to Germany, but only through Turkey or Finland. In addition, they point out, some consider that they are no longer so welcome in Germany. But there are exceptions. For example, the oncology department at the University Clinic of Hamburg in particular has a very good reputation in Russia and still receives many patients from that country.
For Miriam Asefi, the case of Vivantes, where entire wings are closed, is an exception. “Even before the pandemic, there were occasional fluctuations in the arrivals of patients from abroad. “Slowly the industry will recover”, she claims. “Demand remains high, because there is confidence in the quality of the health system, in Made in Germany, in the doctors themselves. “In the future, it is considered possible that more patients will appear from countries such as Kazakhstan, Georgia or even Romania.”
DW
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