ABSTRACT
We approach the topic by examining the hospital and its transformations. Medical tourism is definitely giving birth to new places of care, e.g., new international patient wards. Hospitals designed for foreign patients have been planned in India, Middle East and Southeast Asia. In fact, hospital architecture, design and organization are being rethought through this prism of medical tourism. These hospitals face a dilemma of trying to meet local healthcare needs as well as the expectations of a tourism industry standard. Hence we find it relevant to investigate the services such hospitals provide and precisely how the ‘new’ patients’ demands are being met. Foucault’s (1967) theoretical concept of heterotopia will be employed to analyze the ‘distinctive experience’ of healthcare proffered in medical tourism. The main actors of medical tourism always stress the ‘unique’ experience it can offer patients coming from abroad. Only positive elements are emphasized and the medical treatment offered is said to be near to perfection. The whole experience emulates ‘a realized utopia.’
