SLMC takes bold steps towards med tourism

A hospital becoming a competitive business concern is an extreme challenge but steering St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) to become a medical tourism hub is now being realized.

SLMC has been accredited by the Department of Tourism as the country’s leading facility for medical tourism.

SLMC president and chief executive officer Dr. Dennis Serrano knows the huge responsibility such recognition entails which is to ensure that St. Luke’s sustains the highest quality of medical care while setting up the hospital of the future.

“If you are a tourist or an expat, one of the things you will look at if you want to start a business here is to think about what happens when you get sick or get into an accident. We want our customers to have no qualms about where they can get their medical service,” he said.

Aside from Filipino cuisine and sceneries, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said 30,000 tourists availed of medical services in the country last year, bringing in revenues worth P15 billion to P25 billion.

With the government’s massive infrastructure plan for airports and road network, she expects the Philippines to seize a substantial piece of the global medical tourism market is valued at $63.89 billion and is projected to reach $207 billion by 2030.

“You have to understand that as we grow this market, we do not only grow it for St. Luke’s but for the entire country. St. Luke’s is in Manila but our tourists are everywhere,” Serrano said.

“The recognition from the Tourism Department will hasten the upliftment of medical care in other institutions as an indirect benefit of this recognition,” he continued.

Serrano shared that St. Luke’s gains 7 to 10 percent of its revenues from foreign patients, such as those from Guam.

St. Luke’s eyes other patients from the rest of the Pacific Islands. It now also serves patients from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, SLMC will ink an agreement with Bhutan,” Serrano said.

He said most foreign patients visit St. Luke’s to have their heart problems treated, obtain wellness services, or undergo surgical procedures.

Future-looking

With the projected growth in medical tourism, Serrano said St. Luke’s continues to modernize its two hospitals in Quezon City and Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig.

A new outlet will be opened in Aseana City in Parañaque City in 2029 and will have a 450-bed capacity.

“There’s always a moving target. When we say we’re opening a hospital in Aseana in 2029, it will not be a 2024 hospital that is being opened in 2029. The doctors I have now will not be the doctors I’ll have in 2029; I should have better doctors,” Serrano said.

“That is where the challenge, the investment, the planning for the future come in,” he stressed.

Serrano said the Aseana hospital building costs P18 billion and it will start to be constructed within the fourth quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, St. Luke’s is currently rebuilding its hospital in Quezon City for a possible reopening in 2027. Serrano said the construction costs range from P5 billion to P6 billion.

St. Luke’s is also installing new pieces of equipment in its BGC hospital.

“When you look at this BGC hospital, it may look old but we have new equipment but we are in an old shell and very soon we will be in a new shell,” Serrano said.

Success formula

Serrano said St. Luke’s takes pride in constant investments both in physical and human resources which foreigners appreciate.

For example, he said St. Luke’s offers robotics surgery which doctors in Singapore also conduct.

While the operations are done as excellently by St. Luke’s doctors, Serrano said foreign patients get overall better value from the Philippine hospital.

“The machine is the same and the professionals were trained in internationally renowned training centers, but the cost of our robotics surgery is just one-third or two-thirds of that in Singapore or Hong Kong,” Serrano said.

“Our doctors get training from the best hospitals in the US and Europe, such as from Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and Imperial College of London,” he added.

As an innovative institution, Serrano said St. Luke’s always strives to overperform regardless if it has received recognition or not.

“We were the first in the country to create a seamless airport-to-airport transfer of patients for our wellness services. We were also the first to create in-hospital hotel-like rooms,” he shared.

Recalling the pandemic, Serrano said St. Luke’s ensured it transported patients from the airport directly to the hospital to prevent Covid from spreading and brought them back to the airport for complete patient care.

Aside from these, Serrano said patients who are well and only seek check-ups are delighted with the hospital’s “wow” factors which include free massage and hair salon services.

“They get these free services in between their CT scans, ECG and 2D echo. Patient care is what we work on every day; we have to meet the patients’ expectations set for us. When you are the benchmark, you always have to be ahead,” he said.

Efficient management

Serrano said St. Luke’s has sustained the quality of its services and operations while innovating as a non-stock and non-profit institution by prioritizing a high level of medical care, generating sufficient funds for long-term growth.

“The good thing about it is that whatever we earn in the hospital does not go out as dividends; whatever we earn, we funnel back to the hospital that’s why we are rebuilding and opening a new hospital,” he said.

“Sound financial management is important and delivering quality care becomes our impetus for you to refer St. Luke’s to other patients,” Serrano continued.