3 out of 10 foreign patients received cosmetic treatment last year

Nearly three out of 10 foreign patients visiting Korea last year came for cosmetic treatment, data showed Wednesday. / Gettyimagebank

By Kim Jae-heun

Nearly three out of 10 foreign patients visiting Korea last year came for cosmetic treatment, data showed Wednesday.

According to the information submitted to Rep. Nam In-soon of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, 136,400 out of 464,452 patients who came here for medical purposes visited cosmetic (plastic) surgery or dermatology clinics.

The total number of foreign patients in 2018 also increased by 16.7 percent from 397,882 in 2017.

Overall, foreigners visited internal medicine departments the most at 19.4 percent, followed by cosmetic surgery, 14.4 percent, dermatology, 13.7 percent, and health examination centers, 8.9 percent.

Combining visits to cosmetic surgery and dermatology facilities, foreign patients took up 28.1 percent of the total, up from 22.4 percent in 2016 and 23.2 percent in 2017.

Four out of 10, or 27,852, visiting cosmetic surgery clinics were Chinese, this was down from the average of 53.2 percent of 241,186 patients between 2014 and 2018.

“The ratio of foreign patients coming for cosmetic treatments is rising. The government needs to make efforts to promote Korea's advanced medical skills in other departments,” Rep. Nam said.