Up 17.8% from 2017
The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced on April 17 that a total of 378,967 foreign patients visited South Korea in 2018, up 17.8 percent from a year ago, and more than two million foreign patients visited South Korea for the past 10 years.
The 378,967 foreign patients are from 190 countries in total, including 118,310 from China, 45,213 from the United States, 42,563 from Japan, 27,185 from Russia and 14,042 from Mongolia. The number of Chinese patients increased 18.5 percent year on year whereas the number of those from the Middle East showed a year-on-year decline of 4.8 percent.
Patients with internal diseases accounted for 19.4 percent of the total last year, followed by plastic surgery patients (14.4 percent), dermatology patients (13.7 percent), medical examinees (8.9 percent) and ob-gyn customers (5.3 percent).
The number of dermatology and plastic surgery patients increased 47 percent and 37.1 percent from a year earlier, respectively. The rate of increase was 21.5 percent for ob-gyn, 14 percent for general surgery, 11.8 percent for internal treatment and 8.5 percent for oriental medical treatment. On the other hand, the number of visitors fell 6.2 percent for dental treatment and 4.1 percent for eye disease treatment.