We have a Certificate of Tourist Quality in Colombia.
José is 27 years old and came to Cali seeking life. In Ecuador, a doctor told him he had at most 10 years left due to cancer that had taken root in his thyroid. But before recalibrating his goals to the urgency of a decade, he decided to come to Cali in search of a second chance. Here, they painted a different future for him: ‘The doctors told me they were not going to set a life expectancy for me. They told me to live calmly and do what I needed to do.’
Like José, foreigners come to the capital of Valle seeking an opinion, a surgery, or treatment that gives them more life. Others also seek to stop time, but in its most visible traces, through plastic surgeries and aesthetic procedures.
Known outside the clinics as ‘medical tourists’ and within as ‘international patients,’ the third-largest city in Colombia, which hosts two of the best hospitals in Latin America, seeks to attract more and more people to energize the economy and offer a tourist destination beyond ‘Cali Pachanguero.’
In Cali, the medical tradition is centuries old. According to Dr. Ricardo Salazar, in charge of the library at the National Academy of Medicine, in the 19th century, the Valle was already an epicenter of research, largely due to the variety of plagues that were prevalent in the Pacific.
But there was a milestone that took the medicine of the capital of Valle to another level. ‘Dr. Gabriel Velásquez Palau went all over the world looking for Colombians with good medical training, to form a luxury faculty at the University of Valle,’ pointed out Gabriel Carrasquilla, a native of Cali and president of the National Academy of Medicine. ‘At the time, it was considered the best in Latin America,’ he added.
The Faculty opened its doors in 1950, and since then, Cali consolidated its reputation, which later materialized with the construction of large hospitals. The influence of doctors has even moved to politics, with two recent examples: former mayor Rodrigo Guerrero and governor Dilian Francisca Toro.
Despite this long clinical history, the sources consulted agree that medical tourism is a recent phenomenon. In the last two decades, the term began to resonate, as more foreigners arrived seeking the skilled hands of Cali’s surgeons.
‘At that time, they began to bring foreign patients for plastic surgery, and later began to offer dental services and everything around aesthetics,’ explained surgeon Lina Triana, one of the most recognized inside and outside the operating room. Her father, Dr. Carlos Triana, was one of the pioneers with his Corpus Clinic. Now she receives hundreds of patients in her own clinic, located at a corner of Parque del Perro.
The major hospitals also took an interest and opened offices dedicated exclusively to international patients. Now they are the ones setting the pace of the business with high-complexity procedures.
The three ambassadors are Valle del Lili, Imbanaco, and Occidente. The first two are within the top 10 in Latin America, according to the LBC Conference ranking of 2023, and Occidente is certified in the care of international patients by the organization Temos International.
According to the Cali City Hall, the city has about 40 clinics, 8 ophthalmology clinics, 265 dental clinics, and about 180 aesthetic centers. Additionally, there are six medical schools and 13 research centers. A suitable laboratory for medical development and for a new business.
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