Here is How India is the Best Place for Medical Tourists
Tags: Medical Tourism India, Healthcare, India Healthcare, Medical Tourism, Medical

Medical tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. A number of factors, together, have led to this substantial rise in medical tourists in the country — lower costs of medical treatments as compared to the patients’ home countries, highly skilled doctors, trained professional staff with an ability to provide a ‘home away from home’ stay to the patients, internationally accredited hospitals, world class technology, and other logistics such as cheap accommodation costs. Additionally, the growing popularity of alternative medicine such as Ayurveda and Yoga in the world, and India’s storied history has the originator of those, has further piqued medical tourism in India.

Additionally, healthcare services in India are available at a cost-effective rate, especially when compared to the West. This means that not only does the country see a regular influx of medical tourists from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq, Maldives, Oman, Yemen, etc., making it quite the premium destination for medical treatments among other developing countries, a cheaper alternative, especially in dental care and plastic surgery, attracts patients from developed nations such as the US, UK, Germany, as well. For the purpose of comparison, compare the following: Heart Bypass procedure can run up to US$ 144,000 in US when it can be done in India for US$ 5,200; a hip replacement surgery can cost up to US$ 50,000, when in fact it could be done in US$ 7,000 in India; lasik (for both eyes) cost about US$ 4,400 in the US, when it costs only US$ 500 in India. It is important to note that the low cost of these services does not mean low quality of services. Healthcare is cheap in India as compared to other “western”/”developed” countries because of lower labour costs. A large population means a large batch of readily available pool of labour — doctors, nurses, janitors, etc — and this brings down the cost per head per hour, especially when compared to the West. Further, low labour costs bring down the taxation on the same since the two are directly correlated.

Further, it is not just affordability of healthcare services that makes India stand out on the global stage. India has an abundance of highly skilled professionals. In fact, we’ve got so many talented doctors, the new stereotype of “doctor” in Hollywood is that of an Indian. Moreover, with English being the language of official correspondence and that most Indians receive all of their education in English, medical tourists in the country rarely feel the “language barrier,” since most Indians are fluent in English, be it the doctor or the nursing staff. Additionally, the best hospitals in India are well equipped in dealing with regular influx of medical tourists and have specialised teams trained to make the patient comfortable during their stay. Such hospitals have specific programs that take into consideration the cultural and ethnic background of the patients to provide a ‘home away from home’ stay.

Ease of travel to and fro the country has played an important role in the exponential growth of medical tourism in India. In November 2014, perhaps realising the importance of medical tourism in India, the government launched the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) facility, later renamed as e-Tourist visa, for a handful of countries in order to make travel to India easier than ever before. Since then, in its continual effort to promote tourism in the country, not only has the list of eligible countries expanded by leaps and bound, the process itself has been bifurcated, compartmentalized, and deconvoluted. Between 2014 to 2016, the Ministry of Tourism has reported a 166 per cent jump on the number of people entering India on medical visas — from 75, 688 in 2014 to 201,333 in 2016.

When the cost of a heart transplant in the US runs up to US$ 1.4 million and an alternative within $23,000–40,000 is available here, India is bound to attract even more medical tourists from all over the world, from both new markets and old. That, coupled with the government’s dynamic collaboration with leading public and private stakeholders to provide cheap and affordable yet safe and effective healthcare to go with it, has not only made India a premium destination for medical tourism, it will catapult this growth even further.