The very first cochlear implant surgery procedure to be performed by a government hospital in Southeast Asia was recently performed at the Universitiy Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (PPUKM) in Malaysia. The surgery was performed on a 36-year old patient named Dewiseri Taib. Taib was partially deaf. The surgery is allows patients who are hearing-impaired to hear.

The Malaysian government recently established the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) under the Malaysian Health Ministry. The council was established to help promote the health tourism in the country.

The Malacca airport in Malaysia recently underwent renovations. The upgrades are expected to result in the attraction of more health tourists to the country. The airport, located in Batu Berendam, is expected to receive around 500,000 travelers in the next three years.

There is an unlikely stumbling block to the growth of the medical tourism industry in Malaysia: the advertising guidelines for medical institutions. While other countries are struggling with promoting their country’s hospitals because of the medical standards and the lack of world-class facilities, the stumbling block to Malaysia’s medical tourism industry is the strict guidelines implemented for medical ads.

Malaysia needs to step up its marketing efforts of its medical tourism industry if it wants to catch up with Thailand and Singapore. This was the message of Datuk Syed Hussien Al-Habshee in his statement to the medical community in Malaysia. He is the Secretary General of the National Chambers of Commerce and Industry Malaysia (NCCIM).

Datuk made the statement after he personally saw how Thailand promoted its medical facilities and medical tourism industry in the International Tourism Market Conference held in Muscat, Oman.