After living with pain for nearly 15 years, Russell Cole, 62, travelled from California to Mumbai last November to have three joints operated — knees and right hip — at the L H Hiranandani Hospital. Cole, who suffered from severe arthritis, paid Rs 6 lakh for the surgeries that would have cost him over Rs 25 lakh in the States.
Three weeks later, he was back on his feet and on the way home. “I would definitely recommend India to my friends who have been putting off orthopaedic surgeries for years because they can’t afford it,” Cole said.
George Marshal, a retired policeman, underwent an angiography in the UK. But when he was put on an eight-month waiting list for surgery, Marshal decided to get his operation done at Wockhardt Hospital, Bangalore. The operation was conducted last year and he is doing well.
In 2005, an estimated 1,75,000 patients travelled to India for medical care. Thailand and Singapore are other popular medical tourism haunts.
“That number is growing by 30-35 per cent every year,” says Vishal Bali, CEO, Wockhardt Group of Hospitals. Wockhardt gets roughly 900 overseas patients every year at its Mumbai and Bangalore facilities.
Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, in that order, are the major hubs for standard surgical procedures, comprising about 70 per cent of the total medical tourism revenue. South India, Kerala in particular, gets top billing among those looking for alternative therapies, such as Ayurveda, that make up the rest of the revenue pie.
From an excruciatingly long wait for diagnostic and surgical procedures in some countries to skyrocketing medical costs elsewhere, the reasons why India is attracting overseas patients in the thousands are many.
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Friday, July 20, 2007
Indian Government set up task force on medical healthcare tourism
Government has set up a task force on medical tourism which will suggest measures to promote India as a healthcare destination, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said here today.
"The task force under the chairmanship of Director General of Health Services will assess the opportunities for promoting India as health destination," Ramadoss said at the ASSOCHAM Conference on Health Tourism.
The task force would work in an inter-ministerial approach with inputs from various ministries such as tourism, external affairs, railways and civil aviation, he said, adding it would come out with the report soon.
In a bid to standardise the healthcare services, a pre-requisite to attract foreign patients, the government was working on a Clinical Establishment Act which would make registration of all hospitals and diagnostic facilities compulsory, the minister said.
He said India was now getting patients even from the developed world due to high cost of treatment there.
"While Cuba has promoted medical tourism through its marketing network, Thailand has focused on superior consumer experiences and brand equity. South Africa specialises in medical safaris," he said, adding there was a need to evolve imaginative packages given country's rich cultural heritage and places of scenic beauty and architectural interests.
To rationalise the flow of tourist traffic, the Ministry of Home Affairs had introduced a new category of visa called "medical visa" which can be given for specific purpose of medical treatment, he said.
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