Medical tourism keeps growing

The phrase “medical tourism in Lebanon” conjures for many the idea of visitors from the Gulf sitting in cafés and waiting for nose jobs. In reality, plastic surgery makes up only a small percentage of the country’s international patients’ needs. Eighty-five percent of foreigners who seek treatment in Lebanon do so for other medical reasons, according to Mounes Kalaawi, partner and chief executive of Clemenceau Medical Center (CMC).  Despite the declining number of tourists visiting Lebanon, the country remains a regional healthcare destination because when it comes to one’s life, travel warnings and political turmoil become surmountable obstacles.  Driven by necessity International patients account for roughly 20 percent of the total number of patients in the hospitals interviewed. Those patients are mainly from the region — 80 percent of Clemenceau Medical Center’s international patients are Arab — and feel that their countries cannot provide a competitive level of healthcare. “I