This is not the only case of tourism medical fraud, but the deception methods in such cases are almost the same. They lured the victims abroad on the pretext of traveling abroad for free, and then defrauded the victims of money by means of high-priced physical examination, treatment or selling high-priced "drugs". In the case where Ms. Zhang was cheated, the fraudster hired a person without medical qualification as a so-called medical expert, and even the medical report that convinced Ms. Zhang and others was forged by the company involved.
Behind these medical tourism scams is a complete fraud industry chain. Among them, enterprises in all links play different roles, and similarly, all links share the money from fraud. Because the main link of fraud occurs abroad, the deceived person is unfamiliar in a foreign country and often gives in easily. Even if they realize that they have been cheated, some consumers are "dumb to eat Huanglian" because they care about face, and some consumers give up the truth because of the high cost of safeguarding rights. In addition, because the medical institutions involved are located overseas, it is difficult to cover the supervision of relevant domestic departments, which also makes it relatively easy for illegal enterprises to take advantage of loopholes to commit fraud.
Frequent cases of medical tourism fraud are related to the rising demand for overseas medical tourism products in recent years. According to the definition of the World Tourism Organization, medical tourism mainly refers to tourism services with the theme of medical care, disease health and rehabilitation. According to statistics, in 2000, the output value of global medical tourism industry was less than 654.38+0 billion US dollars, which has soared to 700 billion US dollars in 2000, with an annual growth rate of 20%. It has become one of the fastest growing emerging industries in the world. According to preliminary statistics, in 20 16, more than 600,000 China people went abroad for medical tourism, and about a quarter of them went for physical examination.
This new tourism product is a derivative product after the improvement of economic development level. For the deceived like Ms. Zhang, it is not that there is no local medical examination and medical treatment in China, but in their view, domestic medical services may have been difficult to meet their higher medical needs. The so-called overseas travel, coupled with beautiful words such as free, vacation and distinguished service, is still quite attractive to them.
Of course, we should also see that although overseas medical tourism is positioned as a hotbed of fraud by criminals, it is not necessary to deny the medical tourism service industry itself. The key is supervision and regulation. At present, there are no laws and regulations for overseas medical tourism in China, which will expose consumers to the risk of lack of supervision and protection. In the face of the rapid development of medical tourism service industry, it is necessary for the legislative department to introduce relevant laws and regulations to guide overseas medical tourism services into the legal track. Tourism, public security and other relevant administrative departments should strengthen the supervision of such tourism services according to existing laws and regulations, pay more attention to prior supervision and management, and curb the formation of medical tourism fraud industry chain in advance. At the same time, fraud gangs and criminals
Consumers also need to keep their eyes open and realize that overseas medical tourism may face the problem of insufficient legal protection due to legal jurisdiction and other constraints. Medical treatment is also a highly specialized field. In the event of a dispute, the cost of safeguarding rights may be high. Therefore, to participate in such overseas medical tourism projects, we should pay attention to contract traps and possible risks, and don't let fraud become the label of overseas medical tourism.