The number of foreigners seeking medical service in Korea has grown dramatically in recent years as domestic medical institutions actively promote the quality of their staff and equipment.

As many as 81,789 foreigners visited medical centers in the country last year for checkups, surgery or other medical services, up 36 percent from a year earlier, industry sources said Sunday.

This year will likely bring a further surge of more than 30 percent, the sources said, noting the popularity of Korean pop stars in other Asian countries has contributed to the increase with a number of fans heading to Korean plastic surgeons to help them look like their Korean idols.

“We are providing interpreters and marketing technology to local medical centers to help them attract foreigners,” said Kim Dae-yong, an official with the provincial government of Daegu City, North Gyeongsang Province.

A group of 11 Chinese citizens underwent plastic surgery at a Daegu hospital last month as part of a package program arranged by the city government and the hospital, which also took them sightseeing in the city and nearby Gyeongju, the ancient city most frequented by foreign tourists, Kim said.

That kind of program greatly helps the local economy as foreigners tend to stay longer for medical service and tourism, he said.

More than 5,500 foreigners sought medical services in Daegu for the first 10 months this year, Kim said, and that number is expected to rise to more than 6,000 by the end of the year. Daegu hospitals treated 4,493 foreigners last year.

The Busan City government held an international medical service fair in September, put up advertising billboards on Busan hospitals in the Russian far-eastern city of Vladivostok and invited several Russian children for free cardiac surgery, city officials said.

Russians accounted for 29 percent, or 1,709, of the 5,921 foreigners who sought medical service in Busan last year.

Most of the foreign patients joined the city government’s program to visit Haeundae Beach, Jagalchi traditional market and several other tourist attractions, the official said.

A group of 10 Russians joined a familiarization program last month to visit plastic surgeons, eye specialists and gynecologists in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, a local government official said.

South Korea’s southernmost resort island of Jeju also saw a drastic surge in its number of foreign patients.

As many as 510 foreigners visited local hospitals in the first eight months of this year, up from 46 in 2008 and 223 in 2009. The comparable figure for last year was 720, the Jeju provincial government said. 

(Yonhap News)