Issues in healthcare services in Malaysia as experienced by Japanese retirees

Abstract

BackgroundWorldwide, international retirement migration is growing in its popularity and Japanese retirees choose Malaysia as their most preferred destination. This study examines the pertinent issues related to healthcare services as experienced by Japanese retirees in this country.Methods and resultsFrom January to March 2015, we conducted focus group discussions with 30 Japanese retirees who live in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. Guided by the social-ecological model, we discovered seven pertinent themes: ‘language barriers’,’healthcare decisions’, ‘medical check-ups’,‘healthcare insurance’, ‘nursing and palliative care’, ‘trust and distrust of healthcare services’, and ‘word-of-mouth information’.DiscussionWe identified seven pertinent issues related to healthcare services among Japanese retirees in Malaysia, of which four are especially important. These issues are explained as integrated themes within the social-ecological model. Language barriers prohibit them from having difficulty accessing to healthcare in Malaysia, but lack of will to improve their language skills exist among them. For that reason, they rely heavily on word-of-mouth information when seeking for healthcare. As a consequence, some develop feelings of trust and distrust of healthcare services. In addition, we have identified the needs for provide nursing and palliative care among Japanese retirees in Malaysia.ConclusionBased on the magnitude of the discussion, we concluded that there are four crucial healthcare issues among Japanese retirees; ‘language barriers’, ‘trust and distrust of healthcare services’, ‘word-of-mouth information’ and ‘nursing and palliative care’. We propose that further dialogue by healthcare stakeholders should be carried out to improve further the healthcare service provisions for Japanese retirees in Malaysia.

British and Japanese international retirement migration and creative responses to health and care challenges: a bricolage perspective

“…We also extend the growing body of research on migrant health, which suggests that migrants can lack appropriate and approachable healthcare resources and so 'make do' through bricolage (Phillimore et al 2018;. Most migrant health research has focused on 'resource-poor' migrants, but we argue that IRMs can face similar difficulties due to their legal status, financial capital, knowledge, trust, language and cultural barriers (Hall and Hardill 2016;Kohno et al 2016b;Phillimore et al 2019). Our research suggests that IRMs engage in 'transnational care bricolage' to access and 'add to' existing health and care provision by utilising and combining multiple resources within and across the local, national and transnational spaces within which they are embedded.…”

“…The retired British migrants in Spain ('British' from here onwards) who received a state pension were entitled to free public healthcare in Spain via EU citizenship rights. Whilst retired Japanese migrants in Malaysia ('Japanese' from here onwards) are entitled to use public healthcare services (for a fee), quality concerns led them to elect for private healthcare funded primarily through private insurance (Kohno et al 2016b). Both groups of IRMs encountered challenges in accessing and/or navigating these 'formal' healthcare services and so responded through 'within system' bricolage activities involving the creative mobilisation of resources to make these services more accessible.…”

Risk entrepreneurship and the construction of healthcare deservingness for ‘desirable’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘disposable’ migrants in Malaysia

“…Taiwan ( Little is known about the composition of MM2H households, since statistics released are based on the applicant, do not indicate the number of people included in the applicant's household having moved with him/her to Malaysia and do not include the age profiles of participants. A household, however, depending on the age of the applicant, can include not just spouses but also schoolaged children under the age of 21 and elderly dependents and scholarly work suggests that MM2H participants rarely move to Malaysia on their own (Kohno et al 2016). As such, a more meaningful way to understand their relevance relative to use of and demand for health and care services in Malaysia would be to aggregate applications over time (since families can stay for periods of up to 10 years, after which their MM2H visa must be renewed).…”

Health-promoting lifestyles of Japanese expatriates residing in the Philippines and Thailand

“…2 The most common reasons retirees give for the desire to live abroad include a warmer climate, lower living costs, and a desire to experience another culture. 3–5…”

“…7 Issues may emerge when visiting medical agencies, for example, such as language difficulties and problems with health insurance. 3,4 Exactly how Japanese expatriates modify their health-related habits, behaviors, and activities has not been widely reported.…”