Since the opening up of the Indian economy and the globalization, India has been looked upon as a most sought after destination for major IT companies mainly owing to its skilled and inexpensive man-power resources. All this has happened even before the government of India has begun erecting the required infrastructure. Today, owing to some of the best infrastructure in the world and skilled health professionals added to its age old charm as a preferred tourist destination, India is being looked upon as a preferred destination for medical or health tourism. The Government of India, the State tourism officials, travel agents, large hotels and private sector hospitals have began to explore the medical tourism industry for the tremendous opportunities it offers with an objective to capitalize on the country’s highly popular leisure tourism with medical tourism.

The Indian attraction

Indian medical tourism industry, although new is growing at a tremendous 30 percent annually catering to patients mainly form US, Europe, Africa and West Asia. Despite being at an infant stage, it has begun to overtake and outsmart the medical tourism industries of other competing countries like Greece, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. The fact that about 150,000 medical tourists have visited India in 2004 speaks volumes of this fact. Why India?

Cost factor: Medical costs in India are about 10% of the western countries. For example, a bone marrow transplant in US is worth about $250,000 against about $25,000 in India.

Queues: Living up to its reputation of hospitality, Indian hospitals provide immediate attention to patients as compared to the west where a planned surgery could take up to 6 months.

Hi-Tech: Indian health care industry offers the best of modern medicine in the fields of cardiology, orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, gynecology and dental surgery in addition to age old traditional methods of treatment like Ayurved, Homeopathy and Naturopathy.

Facilities: India’s private hospitals have been internationally acclaimed for their state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities along with unsurpassed professional skills, putting them at par with hospitals in most developed countries.

Deals: Foreign patients are offered package deals that include flight tickets, hotels, treatment and post-operative care vacations for their medical visits to India.

Incentives: The Government of India, not only has declared treatment of foreign patients as legal, but also encouraging medical tourism by offers of tax breaks and export incentives to hospitals and clearing medical visas.

Participants: The cities attracting medial tourists to India are Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai. Many specialty hospitals also attract medical tourists depending upon their condition and requirement. The below are a few:

    -  Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre Limited, New Delhi

    -  All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi

    -  Manipal Heart Foundation, Bangalore

    -  B. M. Birla Heart Research Centre, Kolkata

    -  Breach Candy Hospital, Mumbai

    -  Wockhardt Hospitals

    -  Christian Medical College, Vellore

    -  Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai