Number of foreigners visiting S. Korea for medical treatment hit record high in 2024
The number of foreigners travelling to South Korea for medical treatment reached a new high in 2024
- SEOUL — The
number of foreigners travelling to South Korea for medical treatment reached a
new high in 2024, government data showed on Wednesday, with their visits
believed to have created an economic value of up to 14 trillion won ($9.55 billion).
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- More than 1.17 million foreigners visited the country for
medical treatment last year, nearly doubling from the 605,768 tallied in 2023,
according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Yonhap
news agency reported.
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- The spike was partly attributed to a government-initiated
project to attract more foreign patients.
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- The visiting patients are forecast to have spent some 8
trillion won at hospitals, generating an overall economic effect of some 14
trillion won, according to the ministry.
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- In 2023, foreign patients paid 3.9 trillion won in medical
expenses here, creating an economic impact worth 6.9 trillion won.
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- An accumulated 5.05 million foreign nationals visited Korea
for medical services from 2009 to 2024.
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- Last year, 37.7 per cent of the patients were from Japan,
followed by 22.3 per cent from China, 8.7 per cent from the United States, 7.1
per cent from Taiwan, and 3.3 per cent from Thailand.
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- In particular, the number of Taiwanese patients surged over
fivefold from the previous year to 83,456 in 2024, while a record high of
101,733 American patients visited South Korea.
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- By hospital type, 56.6 per cent of the foreign patients
visited dermatologists last year.
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- Some 11.5 per cent visited plastic surgery hospitals, with
10 per cent visiting internal medicine doctors, 4.5 per cent medical checkup
centres, and 2.7 per cent oriental medicine clinics.
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- Meanwhile, the country also saw a steady spike in the number
of foreign medical doctors. This comes amid a prolonged walkout by doctors and
trainee doctors over a government-proposed spike in the medical school quota.
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- The number has been on a steady rise since 2019 to 472 in
2020, 485 in 2021, 500 in 2022, 521 in 2023, and 546 in the following year, the
data showed.
