JOHOR BARU: The medical tourism industry contributed more than RM140mil to Johor last year, says state health and environment committee chairman Ling Tian Soon.
Ling said the state government has been working closely with health industry players here to further boost the state's medical tourism sector, including increasing its capacity to meet growing demand.
"The medical tourism sector contributed some RM143mil to Johor last year, and we are working towards increasing the figure this year and for years to come," he said.
“We have also set up a special committee and have met with health industry players to work on ways to increase our capacity so that we could accommodate more health tourists in Johor," added Ling.
He then said that several private hospitals have also been expanding, including adding more wards and beds, so that they could receive more tourists to get health services here.
Ling said this in a press conference after attending the state level Nurses' Day celebration at Hospital Permai here.
Earlier in his speech, Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi said the there was a high demand for the tourism sector in the state, especially from Indonesia’s Riau Islands.
“I have recently paid a visit to the Riau Islands and received very good feedback about our health industry. They have very high regard for the industry here.
“They asked for a collaboration between Johor and the Riau Islands so that they could improve their health tourism industry,” he said.
During the event, Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi also announced an RM300,000 allocation for nurses in Johor.
He also handed out allocations of between RM50,000 to RM390,000 each to all 12 government hospitals in Johor to upgrade their pantries.
The Mentri Besar also announced that the state government will also be channelling allocations to health clinics to upgrade their pantries.
