ZIMBABWE’S tourism industry is soon set to receive a major boost in tourist arrivals with the introduction of medical health tourism by one of the country’s privately-owned medical institutions, Trauma Centre Hospital, NewsDay can reveal. BY CHARLES LAITON SENIOR REPORTER
The idea behind the introduction of the medical health tourism, the first in the country, has been mooted by the hospital’s major shareholder Dr Vivek Solanki.
Last week, a private delegation of four medical experts from Denmark visited the hospital in a bid to tighten relationships with the hospital and ensure more patients from Denmark visit Zimbabwe for specialised treatment in hip and knee replacement surgery.
“A private initiative of medical experts from Denmark came here on Wednesday last week and were shown what is available in terms of the state-of-the-art equipment for feedback home,” Solanki said.
Solanki said the Danish delegation came after one of their member Anastasia Kristofferson, who is involved in the welfare of geriatrics in Denmark, underwent a successful hip replacement surgery at Trauma Centre sometime last year.
“I am the only one pushing for medical health tourism in this country, nobody else is. The country will benefit in terms of tourists visiting us for treatment and later they will also visit the Victoria Falls and other places after treatment.”
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Solanki further said the visit to Trauma Centre was as a result of realising that hip replacement surgeries were costly in Europe and above all the waiting period for the operation was too long for patients.
“There are a huge number of Danish nationals suffering from hip problems because of old age. Denmark has a huge ageing population because they live long and their waiting period for the hip replacement operation is about two to three years,” Solanki said
“In order to by-pass this they used to go to Europe, but the costs have gone high. They also used to go to South Africa, but the costs there have also gone high and some are saying there are security concerns in South Africa hence they would want to come here.”
Meanwhile, Solanki has also brought from Denmark a team of experts who deal with audiometry and are providing hearing aids after examining the ears with the world’s latest ear equipment.
“This team of experts is attending to hearing losses and providing hearing aids, in fact, we are furthering our medical relationship with the medical sector between Denmark and Zimbabwe,” Solanki said.