Within the framework of ExpoTurismo Santiago 2024the panel “Discovering the potential: Health tourism in Santiago and its global impact” was held, where the
Julian Suedpresident of the Board of Directors of the Northern Medical Union, when offering perspectives on the development of health tourism for the city of Santiago, highlighted that due to its geographical location, close to all tourist spots, for its excellent air communication and terrestrial, due to its large hospital structure of large, modern and competitive hospital centers, such as the Unión Médica University Clinic, is becoming a great Hub of the health tourism Cluster for the development of fourth level medicine.
“The Dominican Republic is the second most visited destination in Latin America, after Mexico in terms of tourism, and this benefits Santiago as the nerve center of the country, because it also contributes between 15-17% to the GDP of our economy,” he said. .
He specified that at the Unión Médica University Clinic, its main visitors “who come looking for health are Dominicans living abroad, followed by patients who come from our neighbors.” Haiti, Turk and Caico Islands; Saint Martin, Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico”.
“After Mexico, our country is the second most visited in the area and surely last year’s figures will be surpassed in this year. Who does tourism, quality of medical care, safety and the legality of services. The patient experience is the same in health services. Well-told experiences attract more tourists, he emphasized.”
Sued revealed that all clinics that offer health services must have an international department. “That is another of the challenges that we must address because we are receiving many patients who are not Spanish-speaking, mostly from the United States, Haiti and the islands that speak French.”
On your sideAmelia Reyes Moravice president of the Dominican Health Tourism Association (ADTS), said that the first medical specialty that visitors look for is dentistry; then plastic surgery; orthopedic and ophthalmological; while others come for preventive studies.
He emphasized that the country must have updated statistics on all the services we are offering; as well as the number of visitors who come for health and well-being reasons.
“We must also continue to promote more health centers to be certified. This will help us compete more, to differentiate ourselves with international standards and protocols that guarantee the quality of the services we are offering,” she said.
The panel was sponsored by the Dominican Tourist Press Association (Adompretur), with the support of the Dominican Institute of Civil Aviation (IDAC), the Northern Medical Union and the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur).
