The Private Healthcare Sector in Johor: Trends and Prospects
Citation:
Ormond, M. and Lim, C.H. (2018) The private healthcare sector in Johor: Trends and prospects, Singapore: ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute. ISBN 978-981-4818-71-1 (soft cover)/ISBN 978-981-4818-72-8 (ebook, PDF) -- Available for purchase at: https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/
Executive Summary
·
The future of the private healthcare in Johor
and in the Iskandar Malaysia (IM) special economic
zone in particular is intimately tied to larger property
developments and trends in the region, both because private healthcare
developers are increasingly the same as property developers and because IM’s
future population growth relies heavily on corporate settlement in IM and the
jobs that such settlement generates. Volatility in
corporate investment and settlement in IM may have significant consequences for
the sector’s development.
·
The Federal and Johor State Governments
intend to turn IM into a world-class private healthcare destination for local
residents and foreign visitors alike. A range of strategies and policies have
been launched to develop IM’s medical care, aged care, and lifestyle and
wellbeing sectors.
·
It is essential to track the impact of federal
and regional fiscal incentives for private healthcare development and monitor actual
demand for private-sector capacity in order to assess the value and utility of
such incentives, especially given the potential for such incentives policies to
promote the generation of excessive private-sector hospital and clinical
capacity if left unchecked.
·
Private healthcare providers in the region
depend mostly on local residents as their consumer base because Johor and IM
are not (yet) significant medical tourism destinations. Given the current rate of expansion of existing hospitals and
construction of new ones in Johor and specifically in IM, local demand must be
secured via measures that increase the Johor household income base, foster interstate
migration, attract higher-income talent in larger numbers to live in the region,
and improve
quality of life in the region.
·
To strengthen
medical tourism, private players – both large and small – require greater
coordination and cooperation at the regional level in promoting medical tourism
and in setting up centres of excellence and medical tourist-friendly services
that cater to the actual needs of international patients.
[1] Meghann Ormond is Associate Professor in Cultural Geography at
Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Lim Chee Han is Senior Analyst at Penang
Institute, Malaysia.
