International Resentment

 As with any sort of services rendered, there are bound to be those who hate and despise the service that is given. The field of medical tourism, and in particular dental tourism, is no different. A lot of resentment is being felt, and it is, according to the words of Dr. Constantine Constantinides: “motivated by narrow interests, short sightedness, scare-mongering and ignorance. “

Doctors

Most often, this sort of resentment is being felt by doctors in Western European countries. They perceive foreign doctors as stealing their patients, and undermining them professionally. Of course, the first place where any such resentment leads to is into the realm of professional dispute, and Western doctors who feel threatened by the growing popularity of medical tourism usually will question the medical know how of doctors working abroad, the condition of the facilities and a host of other things (one of the funniest ones is the concern about the primitive conditions awaiting patients from the West, with obsolete technologies and dirty clinics being the main tool used for fear mongering among patients).

Of course, these concerns are ridiculous. If you work in private health care, then you are selling a service, and the market knows no boundaries, so you have no reason, legally or from an ethical point of view, to cry about how some people work cheaper than you, when you bring your skills to the market, you will experience competition; such is the nature of the market. If someone can provide the same quality of service for less, that you will see a decline in consumers or patients,a s the case is, and that is exactlíy what is happening. As such, a last ditch effort is to try and besmirch the competition, and thus get more people to stay with more expensive health care.

Treachery

This of course is totally unnecessary. Those who can afford overpriced healthcare will continue to pay for it, while those who do not would not be getting health care anyhow, especially with a public option, like in so many European countries. If someone is too poor to afford the dentist, that does not leave them with any options at all, and so, instead of stealing the clientele of one doctor, foreign doctors working in medical tourism instead expands the market by providing services to a group that is simply not catered to.    

 

 

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