Davos medical tourism sparks alarm about corporate culture
Davos was popular among tuberculosis patients, who banked on its fresh air and sunbathed mountains to cure them. Patients haven’t stopped flocking to Davos but their illnesses have taken a modern form.
Davos – best-known for hosting global elites – owes a lot of its fame to a German doctor.
It was Alexander Spengler who first brought this then tiny farming village in the spotlight in the 1860s. Spengler noticed that the village’s climate somehow made its people immune to tuberculosis, a deadly disease that was wreaking havoc across Europe.
As the word spread, Davos began attracting patients from across Europe. A number of hospitals sprung up, many of them catering to rich foreigners, who doled out large amounts of cash to lounge in their wide sun-kissed balconies.
It marked the beginning of Davos’ tryst with the rich and famous. The first ones being Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, who stayed in Davos while his wife was treated for TB, novelist Robert Louis Stevenson and German writer Thomas Mann, who too came for his wife’s treatment.
Today, Davos no longer attracts TB patients and many of its sanatoriums have been converted into luxury hotels such as Hotel Schatzalp, which is thought to have been the sanatorium Mann described in his novel “The Magic Mountain.”
But patients have not deserted the Alpine resort altogether, it’s just that their illnesses have taken a modern form. Davos and some nearby towns are seeing an increase in patients suffering from burnout and depression.
“The specialty of Davos is the mountains, it’s the touch of nature that you can experience here,” Michael Pfaff, the chief psychiatrist at Clinica Holistica Engiadina, told DW. “The possibility to get in close contact with nature really helps people get their inner balance back.”
Davos tourism authorities are collaborating with local hospitals to come up with tailor-made offerings to promote the region’s medical prowess. They plan to organize a special rehabilitation camp this summer in nearby Klosters for people suffering from burnout.
The participants would be encouraged to spend some time on a nearby farm, take part in light sports and trek up mountains, Samuel Rosenast, a spokesman for the Davos tourism department, told DW.
“There are many people who work a lot and get burned out. They look for a place to undergo rehab — a place where there is good air and no stress,” he said.