Chinese tourists lead to spike in medical disputes in Korea
- Nearly 70 per cent of medical disputes involved patients travelling from China for treatment
- Cancer, cosmetic surgery and skincare most common procedures
Chinese nationals were behind the vast majority of medical disputes in South Korea over the past six years, making up nearly 70 per cent of all cases involving foreigners in a major hotbed of Asian medical tourism.
Government data released this week revealed 810 medical disputes were registered with the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency since 2013, of which 538 involved Chinese patients.
The number of annual medical disputes was 147 last year, up from 137 in 2016.
Medical disputes involving Chinese tourists have now dwarfed the number of cases involving other foreign nationals in Korea. Americans were only responsible for 72 disputes during the entire period, while the next most common nationalities were Vietnamese, Mongolian and Russian patients, who were behind 41, 22 and 17 cases respectively.
The most common types of procedures involved in the disputes were plastic surgery, orthopaedic surgery and obstetrics.
Chinese birth tourism in Canada isn’t a loophole, grey area or oversight. It’s 100 per cent legal
“It is necessary to come up with measures, such as increasing the number of counsellors or translators so that foreign patients can solve medical disputes with local medical institutions and hospitals,” lawmaker Choi Do-ja said, according to Korean news agency Yonhap.
