ABSTRACT
International medical travel—temporary movements by patients across national borders in order to seek medical treatments—is not a singular phenomenon, but one that varies depending on region, country of origin, destination, type and status of the medical treatment required, citizenship and financial status of patients, distance travelled and social support. Reflecting upon recent literature and our own ethnographic work on medical travel in the two regional hubs of Thailand and Malaysia, we examine the transnational social space of medical travel created through relationships between people, production, consumption and care that span national borders. Various migratory flows are imbricated with these medical mobilities, suggesting a complex intersection of mobilities, place and biological status with flows that are multidirectional, and riven by multiple differences in class, ethnicity, corporeality, motivations and volition. We discuss the implications of transnational medical mobilities for equitable health care access of mobile patients as well as residents in origin and host countries, including a consideration of the hybrid mobilities and its organization through brokers; changing health governance as state and non-state actors transcend national health care systems; the changing meanings of citizenship and individuals’ relationships with their state; and the implications of the trade in vitality and the value of human health. Finally, we consider the future of transnational medical care, given challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the reassertion of national borders and demographic changes.
