First Chinese medical tourism group to visit Taiwan in September

Taipei, Taiwan – About 20 tourists from eastern China’s Jiangsu Province will visit Taiwan Sept. 19 for six days of health checks and sightseeing, making it the first large medical tourism group to visit Taiwan since the signing of a cross-Taiwan Strait trade pact in June.

The trip has been arranged by Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital in Taipei and the China-based Jiangsu China Travel Service (JSCTS).

Hung Tzu-zin, director of a health management center affiliated with the hospital, said that in addition to the positron emission tomography (PET) scanning previously offered, the Chinese visitors will also be given the newly added 256-slice cardiac computed tomography (CT) scanning. Both are non-invasive checks.

Hung said that 256-slice CT-scans are used as a fast and non-invasive method for detecting vascular calcification of the coronary arteries and for accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular, peripheral vascular and other diseases.

PET scans are performed to detect cancer, to determine whether a cancer has spread in the body, and is a popular health check item among Chinese medical tourists visiting Taiwan.

The tour package costs around 15,000 Chinese yuan (NT$70,666) per person, said JSCTS General Manager Yang Qilong.

At the end of this year, the number of Chinese tourists from Jiangsu to have visited Taiwan for health checks is expected to have reached 25,000, he added.

The hospital and the travel agency will hold an event Aug. 27 in the Chinese city of Nanjing to promote medical tourism in Taiwan, targeting representatives of travel agencies and tour operators in the city, according to Hung