Medical Tourism in India

What is Medical Tourism?
Medical tourism can be generally defined as provision of 'cost effective' personal health care in association with the tourism industry for patients needing surgical healthcare and other forms of dedicated treatment. This process is being facilitated by the corporate sector concerned in health care as well as the tourism industry - both personal and public. Patients going to a different country for either urgent or elective medical procedures? Is fast becoming a worldwide, multibillion-dollar industry.

Many medical tourists from the United States are seeking treatment at a quarter or sometimes even a 10th of the cost at home. From Canada, it is often people who are frustrated by long waiting times. From Great Britain, the patient can't wait for treatment by the National Health Service but also can't afford to see a physician in private practice. For others, becoming a medical tourist is a chance to combine a tropical vacation with elective or plastic surgery.

Medical or Health treatment package tourism has become a recurrent form of vacationing, and covers a broad range of medical services. It mingles free time, amusing and recreation together with wellness and healthcare packages. In ancient Greece, pilgrims and patients came from all over the Mediterranean to the sanctuary of the healing god, Asklepios, at Epidaurus. In Roman Britain, patients took the waters at a shrine at Bath, a practice that continued for 2,000 years. From the 18th century wealthy Europeans travelled to spas from Germany to the Nile. In the 21st century, relatively low-cost jet travel has taken the industry beyond the wealthy and desperate.

It is like reconstruction and cleans up process on all levels - physical, psychological and expressive. The idea of the health holiday is to offer you an opportunity to get away from your daily routine and come into a different relaxing surrounding. Here you can enjoy being close to the beach and the mountains. At the same time you are able to receive an orientation that will help you improve your life in terms of your health and general well being. It is like rejuvenation and cleans up process on all levels - physical, mental and emotional.

India

India is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism-and now it is moving into a new area of "medical outsourcing," where subcontractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries.

India offers World Class Medical Facilities, comparable with any of the western countries. India has state of the art Hospitals and the best qualified doctors. With the best infrastructure, the best possible Medical Facilities, accompanied with the most competitive prices, you can get the treatment done in India at the lowest charges. A patient will come to India where he will undergo medical treatment and along with that we will show him the Indian tourist and pilgrim destinations, as and when advised by the doctors. The whole thing would save him a lot of money and he will get to discover India at the same time. We assure that we provide the best medical and travel facilities during for you in India.

India's National Health Policy declares that treatment of foreign patients is legally an "export" and deemed "eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings." Government and private sector studies in India estimate that medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into the country by 2012. The reports estimate that medical tourism to India is growing by 30 per cent a year.

India's top-rated education system is not only churning out computer programmers and engineers, but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 doctors and nurses each year.

The largest of the estimated half-dozen medical corporations in India serving medical tourists is Apollo Hospital Enterprises, which treated an estimated 60,000 patients between 2001 and spring 2004. It is Apollo that is aggressively moving into medical outsourcing. Apollo already provides overnight computer services for U.S. insurance companies and hospitals as well as working with big pharmaceutical corporations with drug trials. Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, the chairman of the company, began negotiations in the spring of 2004 with Britain's National Health Service to work as a subcontractor, to do operations and medical tests for patients at a fraction of the cost in Britain for either government or private care.

Apollo's business began to grow in the 1990s, with the deregulation of the Indian economy, which drastically cut the bureaucratic barriers to expansion and made it easier to import the most modern medical equipment. The first patients were Indian expatriates who returned home for treatment; major investment houses followed with money and then patients from Europe, the Middle East and Canada began to arrive. Apollo now has 37 hospitals, with about 7,000 beds. The company is in partnership in hospitals in Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

Western patients usually get a package deal that includes flights, transfers, hotels, treatment and often a post-operative vacation.

Apollo has also reacted to criticism by Indian politicians by expanding its services to India's millions of poor. It has set aside free beds for those who can't afford care, has set up a trust fund and is pioneering remote, satellite-linked telemedicine across India.

India on the health tourism map

India is beginning to recognize the huge potential of health tourism. Already, the country has proved its prowess in Space Science, Information Technology, Genetic Science and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing. Business Process and Technology outsourcing have already caught on. The next boom should be in health tourism. The country is already perceived as a tourism draw for its spirituality, closeness to nature, low cost-structure and relative freedom from health scares like SARS and Bird flu.

Prospects of Kerala

There are several hospitals in Kochi City which collectively offer almost all the high technology treatments that the health tourists will need. As health tourism gains momentum in the coming years, the existing hospitals will find themselves compelled to bring their professional and technological levels closer and closer to international levels.

This beautiful southern state of India is a tourists' paradise. The magazine National Geographic Traveler has identified Kerala as one of the fifty "must-see" places in the world. The state is uniquely blessed with nature's bounty. The narrow strip of land has rolling hills, verdant plains, placid lakes and beckoning beaches in close proximity. Add to these, a population of educated, friendly, hospitable people and a distinctive and delectable Kerala cuisine, you have the ingredients of a memorable tourism experience.

The name Kerala is already familiar in health circles abroad. Ayurveda in Kerala has already spread its message all over the world. Allopathic doctors and nurses from Kerala have migrated in large numbers world wide and have gained recognition and appreciation for their diligence in work and for their pleasing and helpful disposition.

As more and more patients from Europe , the US and other well heeled nations with high Medicare package costs look for effectual options; India is rutted against Thailand , Singapore and some other Asian countries, which have good hospitals, salubrious climate and visitor destinations. While Thailand and Singapore with their advanced medical amenities and built-in medical tourism options have been drawing foreign patients of the order of a couple of lakhs per annum, the quickly growing Indian corporate hospital sector has been able to get a little thousands for cure. But, things are going to change radically in favor of India , particularly in view of the high eminence expertise of medical professionals, backed by the fast improving tools and nursing amenities, and above all, the cost-effectiveness of the pack up.

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