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Monday, February 09, 2004
Trade chief to promote medical services of RP
MAR Roxas’ successor in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will try to put the Philippines on the global medical tourism map during his term as secretary of the DTI.
According to Trade Secretary Cesar Purisima, the DTI will work on helping hospitals in the country acquire accreditation from European countries for “our hospitals to serve their patients.”
“We have the best doctors in the country. We will explore the possibility of developing the country’s medical tourism potential, (especially now that) Europe is trying to decrease the cost of health care,” he told businessmen at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel earlier this month.
Purisima said medical tourism is a lucrative industry, saying Thailand is earning some $800,000 a year from the sector alone.
He said the DTI can assist hospitals in modernizing their services and equipment so they can accommodate foreign patients.
Transcription
The country has already embarked on medical tourism with the first medical transcription (MT) school, International School for Medical Transcription (ISMT), located on Fuente Osmeña, Cebu City.
ISMT executive vice president Lourdes Go earlier said Cebu had potential in developing the MT industry because “Cebu has people with good medical background, and people here have a good reputation abroad.”
Medical transcription, which is estimated to be a $24-billion industry, is the process of interpreting oral dictation by physicians and other health care professionals and recording the content in a written or electronic form, while editing simultaneously to produce a grammatically correct document.
According to an earlier statement, the US is facing a critical shortage of medical transcriptionists.
During the DTI’s dialogue with the Cebu business community, Cebu Investment Promotions Center managing director Joel Mari Yu asked the DTI to become the business community’s ally by championing its cause.
“DTI is not the problem, but the other government agencies that have been making doing business in the country difficult,” Yu said.
DTI’s Purisima assured the DTI will continue to advocate the creation and implementation of policies, such as the tax exemption of imported capital equipment, that will help attract and retain investors in the country.
“I will try to ask the Senate to approve the bill granting tax exemption for capital equipment. I also want to release the implementing rules and regulations of the Jewelry (Industry Development) Act during my term,” he said. JBN
(February 9, 2004 issue)
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