MEDICAL TOURISM POTENTIALS OF TAMALE TEACHING HOSPITAL IN GHANA

Abstract

This study primarily focused on “medical tourists”, that is, patients who were referred or travelled from other districts/regions of Ghana and/or other countries to receive medical treatments at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH). A total of 120 patients who were referred from other health facilities came seeking healthcare from 10 surveyed departments. These medical tourists were contacted over a one month period through structured questionnaire. Information was also sourced pertaining to the most visited departments and units in the hospital and the human resource capacity of the facility. Data relevant to this study about TTH were collated from management through in-depth interview (IDIs) schedules. The study revealed some departments in the facility with complements of qualified staff were heavily patronized. The main traffic to the facility came from the Upper East and Upper West Regions including other districts within the northern region. The facility had also hosted patients from other countries such as Togo and Burkina Faso on the continental front and the USA, UK and Cuba on the foreign arena. The paper recommends the need to keep an up-to-date record of both foreign and local patients who patronized the facility to foster monitoring of the medical tourism potentials of the hospital.