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India promotes medical tourism
India is the latest country to offer tourists world-class medical treatment at third world prices.
Naresh Trehan, executive director of Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, a leading private healthcare provider, says India can now offer world-class expertise in cardiac care, joint replacements, cosmetic surgery and dentistry, according to the Financial Times.
Government support for the scheme came when finance minister Jaswant Singh called for India to become a “global health destination”.
If overseas healthcare consumers are attracted to the sub-continent, it’s estimated that a new medical tourism industry could generate revenues of Rs100bn (£1.3bn) by 2012, according to McKinsey Consultants and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
Price is likely to be the main selling point – at about a tenth of the cost of comparable treatment in the UK or the US. A complex heart operation on an 87-year-old American patient reportedly cost $8,000, including travel and a month’s hospital bills, compared to the $40,000 he claims he’d previously paid at home for a less complex operation.
And health-conscious travellers, part funding their trip with the savings they make on preventive health screening, could pay only a quarter as much in India as a similar tests might cost them in London.
The fly in the ointment is that India is not widely viewed as a land of good health. Corporate hospitals may equal their American counterparts, but visitor confidence in public sanitation may take a knock when confronted by overcrowded public hospitals, open sewers and garbage littered streets.
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