JAMAICA’S slow march into the lucrative field of medical tourism is likely to pick up pace as the administrators of Andrews Memorial Hospital expedite their push to build out the facility into a top-quality health-care provider.

According to Donmayne Gyles, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer (CEO), Andrews is already treating patients from abroad, but the service is not yet officially labelled as medical tourism.

“Yes, in an unofficial way, but it’s part of our strategic plan to ensure that it is officially embedded in our operations,” Gyles responded when the Jamaica Observer asked if, under the hospital’s plan to achieve international accreditation, he envisions treating patients from abroad.

“Right now we have surgeons who bring patients from around the region and the UK to Andrews to do procedures,” he added.

The troubling issue of most health insurance providers in the United States not automatically covering medical services received in Jamaica is not a bother to Andrews as the Seventh-day Adventist Church-owned and -operated hospital has forged alliances to handle that.

“We have partnerships with more than one international insurance company that accept our claims in the US as well as in Europe,” Gyles told the Observer.

“We have expatriates right here in Jamaica who — because we offer corporate health service to corporate clients — come with their international health insurance and we are able to negotiate and work with their insurance companies overseas. And so yes, we have a relationship with them. So, while it is not officially established, it is in place. We have patients across the region… and from Europe who have come and benefited from services at Andrews,” the CEO explained.

Jamaica has long sought to increase its stake in the global medical tourism market, which in 2024 was estimated at US$41.75 billion and is projected to climb to US$101.98 billion by 2030.

Grand View Research, an India- and US-based market research and consulting company, projects medical tourism’s compound annual growth rate at 16.08 per cent from 2025 to 2030.

“Major market drivers include cost savings and extra benefits to visitors such as cutting edge technologies, enhanced health care, sophisticated equipment, breakthrough medicines, superior hospitality, and personalised care,” added the company which states on its website that its research database, which “features thousands of statistics and in-depth analysis on 46 industries in 25 major countries worldwide”, is used by the world’s renowned academic institutions and Fortune 500 companies to understand the global and regional business environment.

Locally, a number of health facilities are engaged in medical tourism, and Diaspora Jamaicans generally schedule visits to their doctors while on vacation.

Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro) has also reported that the island records medical visits from across the Caribbean annually, and in 2010 the country engaged consultants to explore the opportunities for developing the industry.

According to Jampro, the result from that study led to the establishment of a task force to drive the mandate of a successful industry. That included the design of a medical tourism roadshow series to promote the sector in Jamaica and throughout the United States.

Andrews Memorial, under its current plan, will likely place itself in a better position to increase its services in the medical tourism sector. Part of the Administration’s goal to “transform the hospital into the leader in health-care quality in this region” will see an expansion of the 27 Hope Road, St Andrew, property.

“We have plans to expand, and we have plans to expand our bed capacity during the next three years — at minimum to 100 beds — and we have that space on the present compound,” Gyles told the Observer, pointing out that the present bed capacity is 65.

“We have four operating rooms [and we are] about to launch our fifth operating room. We have a pharmacy, we operate a medical laboratory, an imaging radiology unit, a dental centre, and a vegetarian cafeteria,” added Gyles.

“And in our strategic plan we plan to have a full suite for all medical practitioners to be able to have space for practice.”

He shared that the hospital also intends to have footprint operations islandwide, “But our main focus right now is 27 Hope Road and responding to ensuring that, that baseline is sorted out from a quality standpoint, [after which] we [will] embrace other opportunities for growth across the island.”

Andrews Memorial Hospital at 27 Hope Road in St Andrew (Photo: Garfield Robinson)