HealthAbroad.net: Point of View

First the candy. According to a latest industry report, India’s medical tourism industry has been growing at the rate of 30 percent compounded. Some 150,000 patients from the West, African and South Asian countries visited India for medical treatment in 2006.

Now the kick. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, India’s competitors for the crown of top medical destination, combined attract ten times the medical tourist traffic that comes to India.

The cost of treatment in India is about a tenth and a fifth of those available in the UK and US. The country also has an edge in terms of very low waiting periods and an army of Western trained highly qualified medical professionals. However, South East Asian countries continue to score over India due to tourist-friendly infrastructure and a glitzier image which has been cultivated and sustained over a period of time.

It’s time for India to get a move on.  

The Business Standard says that with an yearly growth rate of 7 per cent worldwide, cosmetic surgery is the new magnet for the increasing medical tourism to India.

Cost effectiveness and good quality care has fueled the boom in India’s medical tourism industry. And with most insurance policies in the West not covering for cosmetic surgery, faced with prohibitve costs at home foreign patients are choosing to come to India. The most common procedures are liposuction, tummy tucks, face lifts and breast augmentation.

A boom in medical tourism has also led to backward integration among the various components such as insurance companies, travel agents and medicare providers. Some Indian hospitals are now also thinking about tying up with foreign airlines to tap into prospective markets.    

In January 2007, South Korea will launch an agency to attract foreign patients seeking cheaper medical care overseas.

With South Korean technical prowess well known, hospitals and administrators are keen to attract patients mainly from China, America and Japan. Medical treatment in South Korea is four to nine times cheaper than in the US and two to three times cheaper than in Japan.

Most Chinese patients visit South Korea for cosmetic surgery and China represents a huge market for the South Korean medical tourism industry. South Korea is also looking into easing visa requirement for Chinese health tourists.

In 2005 some 10,000 foreign patients visited South Korea for treatment. Government officials hope to attract 15,000 health tourists in 2007.

A growing number of Westerners are traveling to Thailand for low cost cosmetic surgery, sex change operations and other medical procedures. According to Thailand tourism agency figures, 1.28 million international patients visited Thailand in 2005 and this number is expected to go up by 10 % in 2006.

Whereas Thailand’s top hospitals for cosmetic surgery charge about $2200 for breast enlargements and about $5500 for Phalloplasty, the same procedures cost between 5 to 10 times as much in the US.

Thailand has 33 internationally accredited hospitals. Always a tourist hotspot, the country has become one of the top destinations for medical tourism.

A shortage of egg donors at home is making British couples travel abroad for fertility treatment.

Spain, with its top level health-care, better success rates than clinics in the UK and being only a short cheap flight away has stepped into the breach and emerged as a popular destination for IVF tourism.

British women who have signed up to receive treatment in the UK have been confronted with long waiting periods, often cited as the reason for the flight of British patients to other low-cost destinations across the world.

No stats are available for the number of British couples and women going abroad for IVF treatment.

Keen to avoid endless waiting periods and eager to avail of medical treatment at one-third the prices at home, Scots are turning to India in a big way.

Waiting periods with the National Health Service (NHS) for some procedures can run up to six months or more, pushing patients to look elsewhere for immediate treatment. Whereas patients in Scotland would have to fork out about 10,000 pounds for a knee or hip replacement surgery, the same can be had in India for around 3,500 pounds.

An average of 200 people seeking medical care from the Middle East visited Singapore each month in 2006, an increase of 20 percent over last year.

Singapore competes with Thailand and India in medical tourism but has become the pioneer in cutting edge medical treatment such as stem cell transplants, live donor liver transplants and advanced robotic surgery. Undoubtedly, Singapore’s top notch infrastructre, glitz and status as an economic and travel hub in the region attracts many people.  

India’s efforts at promoting tourism and medical tourism are being hampered by the paucity of hotel rooms and speciality hospitals. The Government’s Tourism Minister has said that the country is facing a shortage of 150,000 hotel rooms and good hospitals to cater to the high-end foreigners.

Low cost medical care at the hands of Western trained medical professionals has made India into a top medical tourism destination. However, the lack of infrastructure continues to be a serious problem and an area where competing nations like Singapore and Thailand easily score over India.

Some prominent Indian hospitals are eyeing alliances with foreign airline carriers to reach out to prospective markets. This represents a win-win opportunity for airlines as well who are eager to tap into the Indian market.

The airline-hospital alliance entails special packages for patients, in-flight promotion, complementary health check-up at hospitals for passengers as well as assured seats for the patient. It also gives partners a chance for joint brand-building activities including viral marketing strategies.

Emirates Airlines has already tied up with a few hospitals in Hyderabad and Bangalore while Singapore Airlines and British Airways are exploring their options.