By Zahara Haris
The Traveller Global with the partnership of E-Channelling announced the launch of non-conventional medical tourism in the Maldives recently.

Through this initiative with E-Channelling, Maldivians travelling to Sri Lanka for medical requirements will have the comfort of making a medical appointment with their preferred doctor among 80 registered private hospitals to channel over 2000 doctors islandwide.

Talking at the event The Traveller Global Chairman Rizmi Reyal said, “What we have launched today is medical tourism. This is a new thing we are giving to the Maldivian community. From the flight, arrival, appointments, pick up, till they go back, back-to-back services we are going to provide,” he said.

E-Channelling PLC Director Gulmire Ablat said that they are planning to expand their services in all the hospitals in Sri Lanka.

“Our strategy is to expand our services to all the private hospitals in Sri Lanka, to expand our services to government hospitals and Ayurvedic hospitals. We are also taking this strategy to provide our service to the patients coming from outside of Sri Lanka as well as for Sri Lankans who want to travel outside to see hospitals or doctors,” she said.

“Under the management of a Japanese-based healthcare IT company, currently we provide 80 hospitals our channelling system and also we provide a hospital information management system with the hospitals; currently we have 60,000 doctor booking appointments per month and we provide our services through websites,” Ablat further added.

Imtiyaz Shaakir, Consultant, Maldives Inbound Operations, said averagely according to SriLankan Airlines, 30 percent of Maldivians visit Sri Lanka on medical purposes.

“Statistics show 70 percent of Maldivians comes on holiday and 30 percent on medical purposes. We have four to five aircraft of SriLankan Airlines flying four to five times a day and we have 150-200 passengers coming to Colombo,” he said.

The Traveller Global is currently Sri Lanka’s largest outbound travel operator, established in 1987, counting foreign embassies, NGOs, blue-chip corporates, recruitment agencies and leading personages among its established clientele.