Medical travel to Malaysia: what patients from Indonesia, the Gulf and beyond should know

For a family in Jakarta, Medan or Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur is a short flight away. For patients in Riyadh, Dubai or Baghdad it is a longer flight, and that flight is part of the medical plan, especially on the way home. This guide covers what to check before you choose Malaysia for treatment: how its hospitals are assessed, how entry rules work for your passport, what language you will hear on the ward, and the kinds of treatment people most often travel there for.

How Malaysian hospitals are checked

Malaysia has its own national accreditation body for healthcare, the Malaysian Society for Quality in Health (MSQH). It is a not-for-profit organisation, founded in 1997, that writes standards for hospitals and other healthcare facilities and sends assessors to check them against those standards. A hospital that passes is accredited for a fixed period and then has to be assessed again. MSQH publishes a directory of accredited facilities on its website, so you can look up a hospital yourself instead of relying on a logo in a brochure.

Some Malaysian hospitals also hold accreditation from international bodies. When a hospital tells you it is accredited, ask by whom and until when, and check the expiry date.

The Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) is a government-backed agency, set up under the Ministry of Health, that promotes healthcare travel to Malaysia. Its website lists its member hospitals and describes the help it offers visiting patients, such as airport coordination and language support.

Accreditation tells you that a hospital's systems were inspected against a written standard. It is useful, but it is not a promise about any single operation. The surgeon's experience with your procedure, and the plan for your care after it, still matter as much.

Entry rules depend on your passport

Whether you need a visa for Malaysia depends on your nationality, the length of your stay and the purpose of your visit. Check the rules for your own passport before you book anything.

• Indonesia and other ASEAN countries. The Immigration Department of Malaysia states that ASEAN nationals, except those from Myanmar, do not need a visa for a stay of less than one month. Treatment plus recovery can run longer than that, for example after heart surgery, so ask the hospital for an expected length of stay early and check what applies if it goes past one month.
• Gulf countries, Iraq and many others. Malaysia runs an online visa system called eVISA. The Consulate General of Malaysia in Dubai lists the countries whose nationals can use eVISA for medical treatment, and that list includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq and Yemen, along with many countries in Africa, Europe and Asia. The application goes to the Immigration Department of Malaysia, not to the consulate.
• Passport validity. The same consulate page says your passport must be valid for more than six months.
• Arrival card. Foreign visitors fill in the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card (MDAC) online before arriving. It is free on the Immigration Department's own site, and it is not a visa.

Rules change, and the official pages are the final word. When you ask for quotes in Malaysia, MediCurage checks the current entry rules for your passport and the passports of anyone travelling with you.

Language in the hospital

Malay is the national language of Malaysia. In private hospitals, doctors commonly speak English with international patients. Indonesian and Malay are closely related, so many Indonesian patients can follow everyday conversation on the ward. Medical words are a different matter, and consent forms deserve full understanding, so ask for an interpreter if you have any doubt.

For Arabic speakers, ask the hospital whether it has Arabic-speaking staff for international patients. If it does not, an interpreter can sit with you during consultations and explain consent forms before you sign.

Treatments people often travel to Malaysia for

Heart care

Patients come to Malaysia for heart tests, angioplasty (opening a narrowed artery with a balloon and usually a small mesh tube called a stent) and heart surgery such as bypass. As with any heart treatment abroad, the cardiologist needs your recent reports first: the angiogram images, an echocardiogram (an ultrasound scan of the heart) and recent blood tests.

Fertility treatment

Couples from Indonesia and the Middle East travel to Malaysia for fertility care, including IVF (in vitro fertilisation, where eggs are fertilised in a laboratory and an embryo is placed in the womb). Rules on fertility treatment differ between countries, including who can be treated and what is permitted, and Malaysia has its own. Ask the clinic to explain which rules apply to you before you start any medicines, and plan your time carefully, because one cycle needs you in the country for a set number of weeks.

Health screening

Many hospitals offer health check packages that pack blood tests, scans and specialist reviews into one or two days. Compare what each package includes, and ask what happens if a test finds something that needs follow up while you are still there.

Planning your stay

Plan for more than the days in hospital. Doctors usually want to see you once or twice after discharge, and after major surgery your surgeon decides when you are fit to fly. Bring your full reports, a list of your medicines with doses, and copies of any earlier scans.

If you are weighing Malaysia against another country, you can ask hospitals in several countries to quote for the same treatment. Our quote form has a preferred country field, and you can choose more than one. Each hospital quotes for your case, and you choose where to go.

Start with your latest reports and a short note on what you are hoping to have treated. Everything after that, from the right hospital to the right visa, follows from them.