Rome to enter the medical tourism market

Italian authorities plan to invest in and develop medical tourism and benefit from the growing numbers of medical tourists. The country offers quality treatment in neurology, cardiac surgery, oncology, bariatric surgery, and orthopaedics.

Italian authorities plan to invest in and develop health tourism and benefit from the growing numbers of medical tourists.

Italian health tourism promoters are well aware that the country has a great potential. The country offers quality treatment in neurology, cardiac surgery, oncology, bariatric surgery, and orthopaedics.

Information on inbound and outbound medical tourism numbers is very scarce. Local sources suggest that as few as 5,000 foreigners seek treatment in the country compared to 200,000 Italian patients who go abroad. Foreign patients in Italian hospitals mostly come from Switzerland, Russia, Albania and the Gulf.

Medical and health tourism in Italy is promising but it requires coordinated and targeted action to allow the growth of this system of innovative activities, something Italian authorities are very bad at.

The University Hospital of the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome has got together with local hospitals and hotels interested in medical tourism to jointly promote their services to international patients.

Local hospitals including Rizzoli in Bologna, Niguarda Hospital in Milan and Health City of Turin all offer interpreters, medical records in the patient’s language, nurses available at night, shuttle services to and from the airport, rooms for relatives, agreements with major hotels, and satellite TVs in rooms.