An integrated medication tourism zone is planned in Nasugbu, Batangas, with completion due by November 2012. Local company Global Village Mobile Network Corp (GVMNC) has been approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) as a new ecozone medical tourism enterprise. GVMNC facilities will occupy a 24-hectare portion of the 52-hectare medical tourism park being developed by local group Camp David Investment and Holdings (CDIHI). PEZA has also approved CDIHI as a new medical tourism park developer subject to a presidential proclamation. CDIHI has allocated P318 million for the development of the park.

Facilities within the medical tourism park include a tertiary hospital that is designed to accommodate 100-bed in-patient suites, 8-bed intensive care units, 8-bed cardiac care units, 10-bed hemodialysis unit, 8-bed day care surgery unit, 3 fully functional operating rooms, a cardiac catheterization laboratory and a lithotripsy unit. A five-star hotel will accommodate visiting relatives and patients. The development also includes clustered home facilities for the elderly with long term medical care requirements. These are designed to provide programmed long-term care to 1152 residents, some locals but mainly Japanese retirees, with on-line telemedicine facilities. Other facilities in the park include healthcare, wellness and cosmetic surgery and spa; condominium administrative housing, country club complex, pavilion complex and satellite network hub facility.
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The Cebu Health and Wellness Council (CHWC) is upbeat about Cebu’s potential in medical tourism. The group is seeing an increasing number of medical travelers in the province. It seeks to use the country’s growing expatriate Filipino workers, balikbayans, as envoys to promote medical tourism where they work.
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CHWC is a private-public sector coalition developing and promoting the health and wellness industry in Cebu. It includes hospitals, doctors, dentists, spas, hotels, travel agents, tour operators and government departments.

The aim is to position Cebu as a premier health and wellness destination in Asia by attracting foreign patients through testimonies and first-hand experiences of balikbayans of local medical and wellness services. The Department of Tourism-Cebu wants to attract Filipinos around the world to come back home for health and wellness services and become ambassadors for the sector. So international Filipino communities with foreign friends would share by word-of-mouth their personal experiences of local health and wellness therapies. CHWC member-organizations are conducting talks with several Filipino communities abroad who could help bring in Filipino patients. Cebu also wants to attract Americans and Europeans seeking medical services and wellness vacation packages. The Philippines wants to catch up with rivals Thailand, India, Singapore and Malaysia. Read the original article here http://www.imtjonline.com/news/?entryid82=165283