The future of Cayman’s medical tourism sector was debated by local and international industry experts at the RF Cayman Economic Outlook 2026 conference, held at Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa on 11 Feb.
Despite often being overshadowed by the jurisdiction’s more established industries, such as finance and conventional tourism, the panellists were keen to demonstrate how far medical tourism has grown.
Dr. Christopher Williams from Regenexx Cayman noted the firm has been offering stem cell therapies in the Cayman Islands since 2011. While Shomari Scott, the chief business officer of Health City Cayman Islands, highlighted the US$200 million that Health City has invested in medical infrastructure. “We can now offer cardiac operations for [US]$35,000 in the Cayman Islands that would cost [US]$250,000 in New York.”
“I think now Cayman is a leader in health care,” said Scott. “Prior to Health City being here we had air ambulances coming out, but now they are coming in.”
But panellist and biotechnology futurist Jamie Metzl noted that Cayman couldn’t take medical tourism success for granted. “Cayman is doing fantastic compared to other places in the Caribbean, but increasingly the competition isn’t just from the Caribbean but all over the world.”
Williams agreed, “The competition has definitely heated up. When we started in 2011, one of our main competitive advantages was that we had US-trained physicians. That’s now practically standard.”
How to lower costs
The ‘Cayman cost’ was highlighted as one of the chief challenges to growing medical tourism.
“We need to lower the cost of doing business to be competitive,” said Cayman-based healthcare entrepreneur Andrew Vincent. He wasn’t talking about the usual factors associated with Cayman such as salaries and energy prices but instead focused on the legislative cost.
“Government delays create an unnecessary cost of doing business. You could call it a legislative cost, but if we have to wait for licences and permissions or legislation, then it all pushes up our costs,” Vincent said.
Vincent highlighted that the unwieldy immigration process makes it difficult to attract top medical talent. “We need to offer secure immigration processes and professional longevity to persuade them to move to the other side of the world,” he said.
He also took aim at local health insurance providers, saying, “The majority of them still can’t take bulk submissions of claims, so you have them being processed in this slow, singular, manual way.”
Scott cited the example of the Human Tissue Transplant Act (2013), which was passed more than a decade ago but has not been implemented.
“This is tried and tested in Caribbean jurisdictions like Trinidad and Tobago, but we can’t get it over the line,” said Scott. “At times, you need the government to be able to get the experts to give the advice and then trust them to move it forward.”
Yet Scott finished by saying he was optimistic that the current government would pass legislation that would support medical tourism. “I think the recent launch of the ID Card shows that this is a government prepared to innovate,” he said.
Related Videos
Mr. Shomari Scott is absolutely correct about furthering the intents of the Tissue Transplant Act 2013. Thirteen years and still nothing to allow organ transplants here, while the law exists. Why? Because no enabling Regulations exist. Why? Because no one or team in the CS has created them. Meanwhile, every week, usable organs are buried or cremated. Of course, the TTA would have to be paired with some organ donor registry. Clearly, the latter is awaiting the former.
But, thirteen years waiting on enabling regulations is not Government’s worst delay. In 2003, the Traffic Law included the requirement for taxi meters. We’re still waiting for those Regulations to be created! No hope under the present Director of Public Transport, though.
“At times you need Government to get the experts to give advice…”. That is exactly the role of the Civil Service, at ALL times, as the executive branch. Predominantly to serve as the technical experts and advisers to create, guide and deliver on any Government’s political mandate. But for 40 years, our Government’s policy is for the elected representatives, straight off the street, to suddenly become “experts” in the field of their designated responsibilities and direct from above. Meanwhile, the CS technocrats often cower from the politicians, or are not themselves equipped to offer good advice, or simply hire costly consultants to do their own jobs and then everyone ignores the consultants’ advice and the politicians, who know not that they know not, will personally direct the matter.
That approach has failed repeatedly over the last 40 years and has cost hundreds of millions by now in wastage, over-runs, doing something two or three times before making it “workable” (but not necessarily “correct”), poor project management in general, and outright failures (ReGen alone – $17+ million), and is continuing every day. But we keep doing it that way.
NCFC Cabinet, if by chance it otherwise escapes you, I urge you to read the public’s comments in our various media forums, about the failures of the CS in delivering effective, efficient and fiscally prudent policies and practices to the public. There is widespread concern! Please do something to stop that cycle and make the CS more accountable! In 3+ years, the public will be judging the NCFC at the polls, not the CS. So, it’s up to you, NCFC, if you let the CS make you fail….the CS has proven to be good at that!
Well, that’s me off a few Christmas Card lists! To be completely accurate, overall, I said that medical tourism is a price sensitive business and to be competitive we had to ensure providers could establish and manage their businesses without unnecessary cost, such as an overly long approval or licensing process, and to ensure the best reputation and quality competitiveness we needed to attract top talent, which was difficult when you couldn’t offer senior, world class medical professionals any degree of certainty in the recruitment process, as it represented career risk for them. But… the core message was we have so much potential to succeed in this space if we decide this is an important industry for us and then align systems, legislation and processes to support being competitive.
Health City was granted numerous valuable duty and other concessions (including a waiver of work permit fees) based on their claim to attract significant medical tourism, which never materialised. It has for some time been focusing on servicing the medical needs of Caymanians and other residents in competition to local hospitals and I wonder how many overseas patients they currently attract.