Student Edge - Researching Hope in Guatemala: Medical Tourism

A decade ago, people from other countries flocked to America for high-quality healthcare delivered with limited delays. Today, “medical tourism” consists mainly of Americans, Europeans, and Canadians traveling to developing nations to receive the same care at rock-bottom prices.

Andrea Ponce ’09 (left) thinks this new twist may help ignite her beloved Guatemala’s floundering economy. “I think that medical tourism is a great way to start offering services to developed countries and empower our economy,” she writes in an e-mail from home.

Daughter of a surgeon and a tour operator, Ponce began examining Guatemala’s prospects for the emerging medical tourism industry for a visit Guatemala’s renowned volcanoes, lakes, and Mayan ruins.

The demand for medical tourism is certainly there, Ponce says: many Europeans and Canadians are tired of the long waiting periods for surgeries common in their healthcare systems. And forty-five million uninsured Americans represent a virtually untapped market.

That’s good news for Guatemala. A decade after a peace agreement that ended thirty-six years of guerrilla warfare, 32 percent of the population of this tropical beauty lives on less than $2 a day.

Ponce, who plans to get her MBA after graduation, hopes the burgeoning industry will alleviate some of the pressure for many of her compatriots to emigrate for work. “I want to create opportunities for Guatemalans so that they do not have to migrate to other countries,” she says.—M.H.B.