A businessman from Hong Kong who was suffering from both Parkinson’s disease and cancer came to Taiwan and, after being treated with a combination of Chinese and Western medicine, is today back on the golf course leading the good life. Meanwhile, Taiwanese doctors treated a Vietnamese girl with end-stage leukemia using groundbreaking chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, enabling her to return to her family.
“Thank You, Si Yu’os Ma’åse’, Taiwan.” Ted D. Nelson from Guam expressed his gratitude to China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) in both English and Chamorro after receiving care there. Ted suffered from severe hip and spine problems for nine years, giving him a bent back and severe pain and making even walking or sleeping into luxuries. It was only after coming to Taiwan for surgery that he was finally able to again raise his head and gaze at the sky. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a short video of his touching story on Taiwan’s YouTube channel, Trending Taiwan, under the title Looking Up Again.
Refined international healthcare services
“For international healthcare to be successful, one-half depends on doctors and the other half on support personnel,” says Chou Aichi, CEO of the International Center at CMUH, carefully explaining the keys to attracting foreigners for medical tourism. In practice, attention must be devoted to many complementary measures beyond medical technology and techniques alone. These include, for example, video diagnostic interviews before patients come to Taiwan, immediate responses to queries on individual cases, planning for treatment, visa applications, airline reservations, and accommodations. Chou has started up an English class for medical colleagues to lay the foundations for even better doctor-patient relations. When a patient arrives in Taiwan they must be met at the airport by a specially assigned person and be accompanied throughout their course of treatment by a case manager in order to put them at ease and ensure the quality of their healthcare services.
The team’s coordination abilities are really put to the test in figuring out how to make sure that international patients can, within a limited number of travel days, complete a satisfying journey. Chou mentions the following example: An important political figure from Guam was suffering from complications resulting from a serious automobile accident and required treatment in many departments. She originally planned to seek care in Arizona in the US, but despite making appointments three months in advance she was unable to get all the treatment she needed. However, thanks to arrangements made by CMUH, in Taiwan she was able to see 12 different specialists in just one week, leaving her dazzled by the technology and services offered by healthcare providers in Taiwan.
Making friends around the world
Taiwan has an excellent international word-of-mouth reputation for its healthcare, and has on numerous occasions been listed number one in the world Health Care Index released by the global database website Numbeo. Wu Ming-yen, CEO of the Medical Excellence TAIWAN foundation, describes Taiwan’s competitive advantages, which include high quality healthcare at reasonable prices (resulting in a high cost-performance ratio), thoughtful hotel-like services, ample instruments and equipment, and short waiting times for treatment.
Chou Aichi states that CMUH has always had the ideal of “using healthcare to make friends around the world” and has been working to build up the medical tourism market in Guam for a long time. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they even organized humanitarian charter flights to bring patients from Guam to Taiwan for treatment. She says with a smile that the clients at the International Center generally are introduced to Taiwan by word of mouth, and as a result, despite the fact that direct flights between Guam and Covid were suspended during the pandemic, people from Guam never ceased to make journeys to Taiwan to seek medical advice.
Chou, who treats people with warmth and sincerity, has made friends from a wide variety of countries. One example is Aung Htet Naing from Myanmar, who, at the time he arrived in Taiwan for treatment, was bent over all the time because of severe scoliosis and whose breathing functioned at only 30% of the level of a normal person. As he was very reticent about interacting with other people, his attending physician said: We were like his parents in Taiwan and were determined to cure him. The treatment period happened to overlap with the Lunar New Year holiday, and Chou even went out in the rain to deliver food to Aung Htet Naing, which was very heartwarming for him.
World class medical technology and techniques
Cancer has been a problem that medical professionals and scientists worldwide have been laboring to solve for the last 100 years, and Taiwan is also deeply involved in therapeutic research. Taking proton therapy, which employs cutting edge medical technology, as an example, there is proton therapy equipment in northern, central, and southern Taiwan, making Taiwan a country with a high concentration of such gear in comparison to population. The protons are similar to undersea mines, and the most characteristic features of this therapy are that it can precisely target tumors and has few side effects.
Another of the globe’s most advanced technologies is heavy ion therapy. Taipei Veterans General Hospital formally opened Taiwan’s first Heavy Ion Therapy Center in 2023, and it is only the 14th such facility operating in the world.
Taiwan has also introduced other advanced therapeutic technologies at the same as Europe and North America, such as “CAR T-cell therapy.” Li Chi-cheng, director of the Center of Stem Cell & Precision Medicine at Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, relates that “CAR T-cell therapy is an innovative treatment for cancer that simultaneously employs cell therapy, gene therapy, and immunotherapy.” It has been used to successfully cure many difficult international cases of hematological neoplastic diseases (including leukemia and lymphoma).
Take for instance the case of a Vietnamese girl named Bao (whose nickname in Taiwan was “Gem,” pronounced bao in Chinese). She first fell ill with leukemia at the age of six, and although it was brought under control by chemotherapy, she suffered a relapse at age 11. She received a bone marrow transplant at that time, but again suffered a relapse two years later and the cancer worsened to enter her bone marrow. In desperate condition, Gem could only survive through transfusions. She heard about Taiwan’s healthcare from a fellow patient in Vietnam, and came to Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital to seek a life-saving solution. Following the laying out of a treatment program by a hospital medical team and the issuance of an emergency medical visa, she came to Taiwan for CAR T-cell therapy and finally was successfully cured.
Combined Chinese and Western medicine
The effectiveness of NRICM101, an herbal treatment for Covid-19 developed in Taiwan during the pandemic, drew worldwide attention to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In addition, Taiwan has been proactively developing medical treatments that integrate Western and Chinese medicine, which has become a major feature of Taiwan’s international healthcare services.
In general, when the idea of integrated Western and Chinese medicine comes up, most people will think that this means using TCM as a supplementary treatment, for example to enhance a patient’s immune system and offset the side effects of Western medicine. However, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital is promoting precision healthcare combining the two, and has created the first ever database blending Western genetic testing with Chinese herbal medicine to enable doctors to precisely select TCM to treat patients.
A businessman from Hong Kong came to Tzu Chi with a case of Parkinson’s disease that had caused him to lose his mobility. A team at the hospital found a Chinese herbal medicine that could treat his genetic defect, and after using this in combination with stem cell therapy and rehabilitation, the businessman’s mobility was steadily restored; he was even able to go back to playing golf.
Behind the medical team at Tzu Chi, Hualien’s beautiful natural scenery and its wellness resorts play a strong supporting role in attracting medical tourists.
Sherry Yin, chairlady of the Yinsherb group, which has been cultivating organic aromatic herbs in Hualien for over 30 years, opened the Gaeavilla resort hotel to create a space focused on health and well-being. There is a herb garden on the grounds that grows hundreds of herbs, and Yin says that every breath that guests take there is of healthy air packed with negative ions and phytoncides. The hotel staff includes a nutritionist/dietician who will set customized menus of nourishing dishes for customers who have special wellness or convalescent needs.
In order to enable guests to completely relax in both body and spirit, each room at Gaeavilla comes with a steam room as well as a supply of fresh aromatic herbs to allow them to enjoy aromatherapy in their rooms. Moreover, the resort also offers yoga classes, wellness lectures, and bicycles to engage in activities to explore the natural scenery such as admiring Mt. Qilai or following the local Maple Forest Trail.
Sherry Lin’s “foolish idea” has in fact attracted many like-minded international friends, such as an Indonesian businessman surnamed Liu who himself owns a hotel. Liu was diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer that metastasized to his bones, and it was left up to a medical team at Tzu Chi and Gaeavilla to jointly work out a treatment program for him. When his full course of treatment ended after four months, even the metastatic tumors were gone. He successfully beat cancer.
Li Chi-cheng says that people who go to Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital not only receive therapy, they can also hear lectures by Master Cheng Yen, the Buddhist nun who founded the Tzu Chi organization, every morning. Because the lectures are accompanied by English subtitles, foreigners can also take in the life wisdom of Master Cheng Yen, which can inspire people to reassess their lives or offer them solace amidst their troubles. “This kind of humanitarian concern for how people live is especially emphasized at Tzu Chi.”
Dr. Su Jui Yung, the author of a book on therapeutic walks in Taiwan and the former deputy-superintendent of the Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital, notes that Taiwan’s mountain forests are highly accessible. One can go from the sea to the mountains in a single day, and in the highlands can taste various local teas and soak in hot springs, all of which are part of the Taiwanese-style therapeutic method. Li Chi-cheng adds that Taiwan has a very consumer-friendly environment, convenient transportation, political and economic stability, and a safe society, which are all things that can add to Taiwan’s attractiveness to foreigners who are engaging in medical tourism.
