66 July 2016 - Business View Caribbean
are taking, where you fly in, you have surgery and you
fly home, and then you’re on your own. If you get a
complication and you go to a local doctor, they don’t
want to touch you because they don’t know what hap-
pened internationally.
“I don’t want us to be like that.”
The dedication to medical tourism, though, isn’t solely
about medicine.
Because the Bahamas is a small country (covering
slightly more than 5,000 square miles) with a small
population (home to less than 400,000 residents), the
hospital system will perpetually be saddled with empty
beds. If the range for patients is expanded beyond the
island nation’s borders, however, the hospital system
will be better able to compete in the local market in
which healthcare is free.
“To expand our local market would be very difficult for
us,” Rassin said. “They come to us for quality care,
which is fine. But if I can get into the international mar-
ket, then we can expand our business. That’s really
why we’ve gotten into the (medical tourism) business,
so we can expand as a company.”
Among the steps Rassin and the organization took to
enhance the Bahamas’ desirability as a medical des-
tination was gaining certification from Joint Commis-
sion International, a U.S.-based entity that identifies,
measures and shares best practices in quality and pa-
tient safety around the world.
Other positive factors include having English as a pri-
mary language and being located in a place that’s al-
ready among the world’s top travel destinations. The
main challenge, then, was ensuring that pricing for
medical care was reasonable enough to successfully
