Specialist skills attract foreign customers to Helsinki’s private clinics

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specialist skills are attracting customers from the four corners of the world to the private hospitals in Helsinki.
      The exact number of foreign customers is not known, but a quick telephone enquiry round reveals that the private clinics in the Finnish capital receive hundreds of patients from abroad each year. For example, special plastic surgery and cancer treatments are of interest to foreign patients.
      Only six months after the opening of the facility, nearly one out of ten patients at the private cancer treatment clinic Docrates comes from abroad.
      According to managing director Harri Puurunen, once the clinic’s new premises are completed in Ruoholahti in 2009, it is expected that up to a third of the customers will come from overseas. This translates to 300 to 400 foreign clients per year.
      So far the customers of foreign extraction have included clients from Russia, Germany, England, and the Arabian Peninsula. The customers receive services in Finnish, Swedish, and English.
      “In our future recruiting the language issue will be emphasised”, Puurunen points out.
     
“In cancer treatments in particular, Finland has a very good reputation. We have received great treatment results, which have been widely publicised in the international media”, Puurunen justifies the interest from abroad.
      Docrates offers new oncolytic virus treatments. This treatment form is aimed at patients who have already tried conventional treatment forms and who are willing to accept the involved risks. The treatment costs EUR 4,000-5,000.
      The Docrates Internet pages will soon be translated into several different languages. “We serve the whole of Europe”, Puurunen says.
      In addition to the actual treatments, the customer service will soon include arranging such things as post-op hotel accommodation. If needed, a nurse can visit the patient to administer medication, until the patient is ready to return home.
      Some of the clinic’s patients receive treatments a couple of times a month, and they will stay in Finland for a few days at a time.
     
Surgical treatments also attract patients to Helsinki. For example, the Lauttasaari clinic of Suomen Terveystalo, Finland's most extensive private clinic and hospital chain, receives hundreds of foreign clients every year. “We have new treatment forms that are not available everywhere”, explains chief surgeon Tom Schröder.
      The foreign clients are interested in varicose veins treatments and laser surgery, which is used to remove wrinkles and tattoos.
      The reputation of the advanced hair transplant techniques used in Finland has also travelled beyond the confines of the country's borders.
      Suomen Terveystalo is now seeking ways to attract more plastic surgery clients from abroad – from Russia in particular.
      “They are interested in using such services, and the economic situation for part of the population there is excellent”, reasons director Heikki Kupi from the company’s plastic surgery division.
      The attractive concept includes great travel connections and a bunch of “exclusive” supplementary services.
      “Many people prefer not to have an operation in their hometown and they prefer to spend the recovery period elsewhere as well.”
      Some of the clients come with their family, which means that in addition to the accommodation, the shopping and exercise facilities also have to be taken into consideration.
     
Some foreigners also arrive in Finland to receive fertility treatments, for example, at the Felicitas clinic, where one out of ten clients come from abroad.
      “In Norway, for one, the laws on donor egg treatments are more strict than in Finland”, explains Kristiina Frick-Kurunmäki from Felicitas.
      Even in Finland the new law on fertilisation therapy has caused a decline in the number of treatments administered. The removal of the anonymity clause has chased donors away.


Links:
  Docrates
  Suomen Terveystalo

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