“Korean doctors are excellent!”
“Korean doctors are excellent!”
- Around 400 patients from the Middle East visit SNUH.
- SNUH offers convenience service to patients such as Halal food and Muslim prayer room.
Kuwait patient Norah's mother expressed gratitude to Korean medical staff with tears in her eyes when her daughter was leaving the hospital after completing burn treatment.
Norah Al Hasoun (21), a accounting student, got burned in a car accident in 2010. Since then she had been hospitalized in France twice in 2012 and 2014, and underwent several operations, but had unsatisfactory results. So she came to Korea last month and received an operation on the 16th by Professor Hak Chang of the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH).
Professor Chang said, "We treated her burn scars remained on the arm, shoulders, face and the chest area, providing a pleasing cosmetic result and the patient was also satisfied with the outcome."
It was the first case performed according to a patient referral agreement between the Korean and Kuwait governments. This program involves sending a difficult-to-treat Kuwait patient to Korea at the expense of the state, and now 12 patients are receiving or scheduled to receive treatment in Korea.
The Kuwait Ministry of Health currently refers 250~500 patients to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Czech Republic, and Thailand for treatment every year, and noted that Korea is famous for having world-class medical infrastructure and system as well as providing medical services at a reasonable cost.
Norah expressed satisfaction; "I've learned of the excellence of Korean medical professionals while searching for information on the Internet to select the country for treatment." "Korean medical team was outstanding in skills and everyone was very kind as well."
Kuwait is the second Arab country that signed an MOU for patient referral with SNUH following the UAE in 2011.
Given the fact that around 400 patients from the Middle East visited SNUH for treatment last year and the UAE refers around 100 patients to SNUH every year according to a patient referral agreement, a growing number of Kuwait patients will come to SNUH.
Executive director of SNUH International Healthcare Center Kwang-woong Lee said, "For Arab patients, we have provided interpretation service and Halal meals, and this year built a Muslim prayer room to help Muslim patients practice religious activity during treatment." "We believe that these efforts will help attract more patients from the Middle East to Korea for medical treatment."