Medical tourism: India's new tool to cause heartburn in US
Sujata Dutta Sachdeva
[ Sunday, December 25, 2005 01:05:37 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
Outsourcing is not the only reason why Americans are unhappy with India. Medical tourism seems to be giving them a heartburn too.
And in order to stem this outflow, American hospitals are going in for aggressive marketing strategies and making patients aware about safety and insurance issues.
Anything to save their turf. Richard Merli, managing editor, Health Care Insider, KPMG, recently wrote in his weekly health analysis: "American hospitals may dismiss those patients as low or middle-income consumers who lack health insurance and might not get the procedure done in the US.
But industry observers say that the exotic locales and prospect of a vacation is attracting many wealthy patients to have elective surgeries done abroad." Last year alone, around 1.5 lakh medical tourists visited India
For more details visit: Medical tourism: India's new tool to cause heartburn in US
posted by Medical Tourism @ 10:51 AM
1 Comments:
While there are some world class physicians in India, the lack of appropriate sanitation and infrastructure is likely to doom India's medical tourism aspirations for the present. India will continue to attract, as she does now, patients from sub-Saharan Africa, neighboring countries and persons of Indian ancestry. People from more developed countries are likely to shun India's offering as more people become aware of the serious sanitation issues. Some hospitals in India may offer a safe environment for the patient. But one the patient is discharged into the community for additional treatment and follow up the risk of infection increases dramatically. While some physicians in India believe a patient can be sheltered from contact with the outside community, I suspect this is unlikely. Currently there are reports of medical tourists from developed countries returning immediately to their country of origin after a brief exit from the Delhi airport.
India is not without competition. Several Southeast Asian countries offer good value for the medical tourist. Singapore has one of the best transplant programs in the world. It is reported in the Indian press that wealthy Indians travel to Singapore for liver transplants rather. That alone should be telling.
Thailand, the current leader in Asian medical tourism currently attracts six times as many foreign patients as India. Many of these patients are from developed countries. Thailand's medical system was built on the US model. In the 1920s the King's father made it his life's work to improve medical care in Thailand. He entered Harvard University and earned an MD degree with honors. He was also inducted into the medical honor society in the US. During his stay at Harvard he convinced the Rockefeller Foundation to fund a US medical education for a group of Thai men and women. These men and women returned to Thailand and were the seed of modern Thai medical system. Today a significant number of Thai physicians are at least partially educated abroad. Many hold US professional certification. You seldom see Thai physicians practicing abroad because most honor their King and return home to practice. Despite claims by the CII, Thailand and Singapore's physicians have a long track record of successfully performing complex medical procedures. Thailand was almost 10 years ahead of India in performing transplant surgery. Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok for instance sees a significant number of patients from the US and Canada seeking total disc replacement spinal surgery, hardly a "simple" procedure. Later this year, the Medical Sciences Department, Mahidol University and the Cardiac Institute of Thailand will be conducting additional clinical trials on a cutting edge stem cell procedure that has shown promise in restoring cardiac function in damaged hearts again, hardly a simple procedure.
In summation, India has potential as a medical tourism destination however, if the sanitation and other infrastructure problems are not addressed and soon, that potential will not likely be realized. Other countries in the region may cost more but will likely remain the primary destinations. Patients from developed countries expect a clean safe environment both in the hospital and out.
Neal R. Yerkes, RN
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