THE DETERMINANTS FOR MEDICAL TOURISM IN PRIVATE HOSPITALS: A CASE STUDY OF NAIROBI COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

The Kenya government is expected to lead in developing medical experts and facilities to take care of the well-being of its citizens and beyond the borders, since health is one of the pillars in the government’s agenda of Vision 2030. Therefore, the study is to find out determinants for medical tourism for private hospitals in Nairobi County, with a view of improving medical tourism in Kenya. The study examined a sample of cross-section of the tourist stakeholders to establish the impact of quality medical treatment facility, service delivery offered, competent doctors and the cost for medical treatments for private hospitals in Nairobi County. A descriptive and exploratory strategy were used for the study, whereby, the population was 400 medical tourists per month visiting the 25 private hospitals (Table 4) using census method. While, Krejcie and Morgan Table (1970) was used to sample 196 respondents, by use of convenient sampling to select medical tourists in each hospital selected. The data was collected by a structured questionnaire and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The presentations and conclusions of the study was done after descriptive and inferential 36 statistics was investigated. The findings revealed that predictors were statistically significant at α=0.05 and the p-values < 0.05 (Quality medical treatment facility, p=0.00; Service delivery, p=0.00; Competent doctors, p=0.03; Costs, p=0.00). This is an indication that Quality medical treatment facility, Service delivery and Competence of doctors all have a significant outcome on medical tourists coming to Kenya. The study recommended that the management of private hospitals ensure that they have quality medical treatment equipment/facilities and competent medical doctors who will offer quality services to motivate more tourists to visit hospitals. The government to put in place policies to protect medical tourists from being exploited by private hospitals as well as to manage public hospitals to compete favorably with private hospitals. In such a scenario, medical tourism would expand and lead to the creation of employment and generate revenues for the country. Finally, the study will assist the government and tourism stakeholders in addressing the obstacles facing local and international medical tourism in the country. The researcher suggested a comparative study between private and public hospitals on medical tourism in Nairobi, Kenya.