HealthAbroad.net: Point of View

Words of Prathap C. Reddy, founder of Apollo Hospitals, one of the biggest private health care providers in Asia in an article in The Washington Post in late 2004.

Bless Google Alerts for pulling up this piece by the brilliant John Lancaster. This is one of the first articles written by a western broadsheet on the growth and potential of MHTI in India. The corro bases his story around the case study of one Howard Staab who chose a $10,000 treatment for a life threatening heart condition over a $200,000 bill for the same treatment in the US. Smart guy.

Aside from the usual lyrical that we have come to associate with articles written on the Indian MHTI, Lancaster raises some important points which I paraphrase here.

• The growth in medical tourism is another example of how India is cashing in on the growing integration of world economies. MHTI is imitating the banking and insurance sectors. Good service at a third of the prices.
• Even as medical tourism grows, it is still early days for the industry as most of the foreigners treated in India come from developing countries in Asia, Africa or the Middle East. Travel from US and Europe involves considerable distance and time and thus is an impediment.
• In addition and rather importantly, India continues to suffer from the image of poverty and deprivation. So, the idea of getting a top notch medical aid in a country with creaking infrastructure and rampant poverty is hard to fathom for most Westerners.
• The Indian healthcare system is hardly a model, with only about 4 doctors per 10,000 people. The public health care system is derelict and inequitable at best.
• The land of byzantine complexity and contradictions that is India, the country also offers a growing number of “centers of excellence” which are armed to the teeth with cutting edge equipment and staffed with highly qualified medical staff trained in the West.

In the animal farm, India is perhaps a bumbling elephant. It coats itself with mud only to clean with water, to be followed by another coat of mud. The final word goes to Anupam Sibal, a British trained paediatrician and Apollo’s director of medical services- “”Nobody even questions the capability of an Indian doctor, because there isn’t a big hospital in the United States where there isn’t an Indian doctor working.”

Here, you can read a personal experience blogpost written by Bill Grimson on surgery in the Phyathai Hospital Bangkok. Thanks Bill!!

Explaining Thailand’s reputation for being a top medical tourism destination, Bill says, “this has occurred due to the cost of treatment being relatively inexpensive, but still A1 professional compared to the “through the roof” cost of medical treatment in North America, Europe and Australasia.” People are clearly doing their research, crunching the numbers and figuring out that the deal for elective surgery+airfare+recuperation in a luxury hotel is  far better than what is on offer cost and quality wise at home.

Bill is also very impressed by the cleanliness and efficiency at the said hospital. An intrepid traveller who had previously availed of minor medical treatment in Thailand, Bill comes away suitably impressed with whats on offer at the hospital.

According to an article in The Korea Times, South Korea’s Presidential Commission on Healthcare Industry and Innovation has announced plans to increase the number of incoming foreign patients to 50,000 a year by 2008 and 400,000 by 2014.

As of 2006, less than 10,000 foreign patients came to South Korea to avail of medical services.

The article quotes an official representative of the agency as saying that cosmetic surgery and medical screening are the care seeking services most in demand with the foreign patients.

To increase the numbers, the Government is aiming to provide a one-stop all inclusive strategy (transit transport, medicare, hotels and tourism) to cater to medical tourists.

South Korean medical professionals have succeeded in establishing a niche for
themselves in East Asia in the field of cosmetic surgery. Although the domestic
demand has been substantial (for a variety of reasons!), the more enterprising doctors are now eyeing the big honey pot that is the Chinese market.

In acknowledging medical tourism to be the next big growth sector, India has launched a massive global campaign to promote India as a destination for medical tourism at competitive costs and high skill set.

According to an official press release used by Zee News, “The medical tourism market in the country, which stands around 300 million US dollars with an estimated 1.5 lakh foreign patients visiting the country every year is expected to grow into a two billion dollars business by 2012.”

The LA Times published an article on medical tourism early this year that started off with a horror story, which goes like thus-

Edson Martinez from North Hollywood needed a couple of wisdom teeth extracted. To save money, he found a dentist in Tijuana who charged him $50 for the procedure. As Mr. Martinez found out, he had probably paid for only part of the procedure since the dentist had extracted only a part of each tooth. Surgery in installments? In order to get his teeth fixed, Mr. Martinez had to cough up $1000 at a dental clinic in LA.

The same article also chronicles the good experience of one June Flowers, a 46 year old woman who flew to Bangkok for a microscopic disectomy, a procedure to treat a painful herniated disc in her lower back. Her surgery was expected to cost $30,000 in the U.S. In Thailand, the procedure was $3,500. A big difference, especially to Flowers, who has no health insurance. Including her sister’s airline ticket, she said she spent $6,400.

As medical tourism grows, so are the numbers of middlemen, agents, clinics and hospitals offering top notch services at competitive prices. Everyone is keen to get a piece of the pie. Few experts dispute that those who choose wisely can get good, even superior care outside the US. A select few hospitals in each medical tourism destination have been successful at establishing their credentials but it is imperative that attention seekers undertake their own research and try and achieve as close an unbiased and independent quality assessment of services before stepping onto the plane.