Earlier this year, HealthAbroad.net interviewed Dr. Tsheppo Maaka, the Managing Director of Serokolo Health Tourism and an Executive Director with Medical Tourism Services of South Africa (MTSA), a quasi-government agency that promotes South Africa as a medical tourism destination.

1. What growth do you foresee in the health care sector in South Africa, compared to other sectors of the South African economy, in the coming five years?

Since I am no economist, I should think this question would be best addressed by economists looking specifically at the growth of medical tourism as well as the growth of healthcare in general.  I believe, however, that medical tourism stands to provide South Africa with a substantial number of patients in the next coming years and will force us to provide infrastructural support as well as the necessary support to provide quality services to those patients.

I believe that slowly the growth of medical tourism will allow South Africa to develop as a health zone for African patients requiring quicker and convenient access to healthcare.  I am hoping to be able to enumerate on the extent of the growth of this sector in the next three years as we are only starting to appreciate this industry for the South African health sector.

 
2. How much do foreign patients contribute to your country's and your organization's total revenues? What growth do you expect in the same?

From the minimal statistics available in South Africa, it is difficult to estimate the contribution of foreign patients to the country’s GDP. I know a private hospital that has received as much as 30% of their revenue from foreign patients. 

This is a challenge at this point as we are still developing the systems to capture all the medical tourists coming to the country and also because some patients that do go through our hospitals are in South Africa on other projects, i.e., they have not arrived in South Africa with the objective of medical treatment. It has been a challenge to compute the total revenue it its entirety.  I believe that as this industry grows at 30% per annum, we also stand to see the number grow according to the Mckinsey study.

3. What are your target foreign markets?

At Serokolo Health Tourism our main markets are the African countries north of South Africa, due to their proximity to South Africa, the ease of travel to South Africa as well as the need to provide services to the African continent according to the NEPAD’s principles and the African Renaissance. We do not, however, exclude other countries and in particular, the UK, due to some of the relations our South African private health companies have with the UK. 

We believe South Africa is suitable to any medical tourist requiring healthcare in the African continent and healthcare from a country where medical pioneers have been produced. 

4. What are treatments for which you expect the strongest demand from medical tourists in the coming years at your healthcare facility and in your country?

In the past two years we have come to appreciate that Serokolo Health Tourism attracts medical specialties across the medical spectrum, but in particular oncology, gynaecology, orthopaedic, major trauma, renal and general medical screening are the most popular. The strongest demand from our clients has been for both tertiary and quaternary medical services for medical conditions that cannot be treated in one’s own country. I expect executive health screenings to increase in the next coming years as people travel for health reasons.

5. What are your marketing strategies going forward?

We are looking to use medical tourism technology in the next year where a patient can plug into our systems directly to book for hospitals from anywhere in the world. Serokolo will be hosting the first ever medical tourism conference in the country at the end of November this year and we are planning to have the medical tourism conference on an annual basis to market South Africa as a medical tourism destination


6. What are your healthcare facilities and country's strongest attraction (or strongest selling point) to medical tourists?

We, at Serokolo Health Tourism, send and admit all of our patients at different centres of excellence -- Gauteng and the Western Cape. We provide access to a full range of medical and surgical specialties according to our clients’ needs. I believe the strongest selling points are the following:

• The medical pioneering of South Africa.  We will soon be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first-ever heart transplant done in the world.

• The expertise of medical doctors who can practice anywhere in the world,

• Accessing first world medical care on African soil,

• The 3^rd most bio-diverse country in the world (after Brazil and Indonesia),

• One of the 11 countries in the world where one can drink water directly from a tap,

• Various only medical centres of excellence on the continent e.g. The Cardiac Institute, The Hand Unit, etc.,

• Affording our client a choice of either Johannesburg or Cape Town,

• Ability to offer medical services to our clients at various hospitals ranging from the most cost-effective to the most prestigious,

• Daily medical case management,

• Highly customized and personal care.

 
7. What are the pressures going forward?

Some of the challenges moving forward are the following:

• Formalizing the industry through Standardization and Quality Control,

• Integrating the various stakeholders within the industry,

• Increasing the number of direct flights to South Africa from source countries,

• Fast tracking medical visas,

• Personal safety of our clients,

• Post-op care and follow-up.
   

8. If there was one thing that could be improved upon in South Africa that would make it a much better place for medical tourism, what would it be?

It would be formally integrating the medical and the tourism sectors fully in order to appreciate and grow the industry.