MALACCA - Over 500,000 tourists visited the Historic City under the health tourism sector alone in 2014.

Indonesians made the bulk of medical tourists to the state followed by Singaporeans as well as locals from all over the country.

Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Idris Haron said that the state-of-art facilities and affordable treatments were the main factors for the beeline of medical tourists to the state.

“I am glad that more than 500,000 tourists sought various kinds of treatments and underwent health checks here for the whole of 2014, mostly at our private hospitals.

“This figure has surpassed our target of 120,000 medical tourists for last year excluding locals seeking treatment in Malacca Hospital,” he said after attending the Nurses Day celebration at Putra Specialist Hospital here on Wednesday.

Idris noted that the rise in number of medical tourists was due to the initiatives embarked by private hospitals to provide quality healthcare and follow-up treatments apart from ward comfort with trained medical staff.

He declared the 500,000 translates to 5% of the total 13.2 million tourists to Malacca last year.

For instance, Idris said Putra Hospital recorded 10,000 patients every month, of which 10% were foreign patients while locals made up 30% of those seeking treatments at the hospital.

“Our hope is that all private hospitals here will continue to improve the quality of services in a bid to attract tourists to the state’s health care facilities while the figure of 500,000 gained by health tourism should be maintained,” he said.

Meanwhile, Idris felt that the role of nurses in this country was very important to help doctors and specialists in providing the quality health services to patients.

“Imagine a surgery room without nurses, it would be chaotic and their roles in health care are crucial and the country is still in need of professional nurses,” he added

Source: The Star