Why was the International Medical Travel Association (IMTA) set up?
Steve Tucker: At the PATA Annual Conference 2006, several speakers expressed concern that, with the enthusiastic boom of medical travellers across the world, there was a disturbing trend of viewing such travel as part of the tourism industry, that people were choosing their doctors and hospitals from websites and without the advice of their own doctors, and that some are already paying the price of botched surgeries and other mishaps. Dr Jason Yap, Director (Healthcare Services) of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), suggested then that an international association for medical travel would assist players to network, form new business relationships, share best practices, set standards and eventually accredit and self-regulate. He offered, on behalf of the STB, to support the formation of such an organisation. In the succeeding months, many players in the medical travel industry from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India and other countries asked about and encouraged its formation. With su
