Ethical Issues in Health Tourism

Abstract

Health tourism has developed considerably in recent years as a result of the economic incentives of the state and the investments of health institutions in this area. In this study, the reasons for health tourism were examined, the political and economic policies that Turkey followed to develop health tourism were determined, and the situation in Turkey's health tourism and the ethical violations that emerged or could occur in health tourism at this point were tried to be determined. In developing countries such as Turkey, if health resources are transferred to international health tourists just to earn foreign exchange, local patients will have difficulties in accessing basic health services and thus the principle of justice will be damaged. On the other hand, it has been concluded that the international health tourist is an important factor in the violation of patient rights arising from language and cultural differences, especially privacy, illumination, storage of personal data and excessive pricing of health services are the areas that can be subject to the most violations.

Keywords

• health law
• medical ethics
• ethical violations in health tourism
• patient rights