Medical Tourism In India

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This article explores the origin and growth of Medical Tourism and the trends over the years . Medical tourism is a term that is used frequently by the media and travel agencies as a catchall phrase to describe a process where people travel to other countries to obtain medical, dental, and/or surgical care . Leisure aspects of traveling are usually included on such a medical travel trip . The term is also used to describe a situation where doctors travel to other places to deliver services to endogenous populations .Many factors have led to the recent increase in popularity of medical tourism. Among these factors are the absence of a particular service and the high cost of health care in some countries of origin on one side, and the ease and affordability of international travel, and the improvement of technology and standards of care in host countries on the other side. This phenomenon cannot be separated from globalization and tendency for a more liberal world trade. In countries that operate from a public health-care system, it can take a considerable amount of time to get needed medical care. In Britain and Canada, for example, the waiting period for a hip replacement can be a year or more, while in Bangkok or Bangalore, a patient can be in the operating room the morning after getting off a plane . The post-surgery mortality rate in the 15,000 heart operations done every year in Scots Heart Institute and Research Centre in Delhi and Faridabad is only 0.8%, which is less than half of most major hospitals in the United States or Europe . However, the real attraction is price . The cost of surgery in India, Thailand or South Africa can be one-tenth of the price of comparable treatment in the United States or Western Europe . A heart operation as an example costs €32000 in the United States, €16000 in Europe, but less than €3000 in India.

Interventions aimed at medical tourism include cancer treatment, neurosurgery, organ transplantation,...