Medhelp in India

India is a favourite destination with tourists looking for medical care
Indo-Asian News Service

NEW DELHI: Last year, The Wall Street Journal ran a feature on Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd., in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, which has treated some 60,000 foreigners over the last three years.

The newspaper tracked Canadian Terry Salo, who faced an unbearably painful and long wait for hip replacement until he decided to get the surgery done at Apollo - which has a chain of hospitals throughout India and neighbouring countries - at a fraction of what it might have cost him in the US or Europe.

"People need to know that there are other options out there," said Salo, 54, who was swinging golf clubs a month after the operation. People are getting to know that India offers world class medical treatments and facilities at extremely low rates as compared to developed countries.

Proof of this increasing awareness is the fact that where, earlier, most people who came to India seeking medical treatment came from neighboring countries, today Indian hospitals attract patients from all over the world, including the US and Britain.

"In comparison to most developed countries such as the U.S. or Britain, treatments like those for dental problems or major procedures like bypass surgery or angioplasty come at a fraction of the cost in India," said Dr. Naresh Trehan, chairman of the CII National Healthcare Committee and executive director of the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC) in Delhi.

A nurse at the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi with a "medical tourist". With many hospitals India offering world-class medical facilities at a fraction of the cost in developed nations, more and more patients from the West are coming to the country for specialised treatment. (Photo: IANS)

"After 9/11, getting visas to the U.S. has become very difficult for patients from the Gulf countries; this, in turn, has made them look for options in South Asia and brought them to India," explains Trehan.

"After 9/11, getting visas to the U.S. has become very difficult for patients from the Gulf countries; this, in turn, has made them look for options in South Asia and brought them to India," explains Trehan.

Trehan, who came to him from London, which is not common in Europe. Dickenson was in India for two months, during which time he not only got himself treated, but also visited a few places such as Goa. When Dickenson had tried to get his treatment done in London, he was told he would have to wait six months under the National Health Service (NHS).

Madhur Varma, who handles foreign admissions at EHIRC, cited the example of Briton Keith Dickenson who spent $1,700 for an EECP (enhanced external counter pulsation)in Delhi. The treatment would have cost him $18,180- more than 10 times as much - in the U.K. "Even in the U.S., the waiting period would have been 9-12 months," adds Varma.

"Treatment under the U.K. government's NHS is highly subsidized, but the waiting period is between six months and a year. Private health care is very expensive in these countries and there, too, appointments take time," said Dr. S.K. Sama of the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, explaining the influx.

The NHS in Britain has about a million patients on its waitlist for a year, and the NHS does not cover treatment at any place that is more than a three-hour flight away. India has been seeking to persuade NHS to allow outsourcing of patients here, said Trehan.

Among the medical procedures most often sought by foreign patients are treatments for cardiac, gastroenterological, cancer-related and orthopedic problems, especially hip and knee replacements, as well as infertility, neurosurgery, organ transplants and plastic surgery, said Roy Fernandez, vice president, International Marketing, Apollo group of hospitals.

EHIRC specializes in cardiac care, and Trehan believes that the cardiac treatment offered in India is among the best in the world

Indian hospitals have tasted 98.5 percent success in heart surgeries, a success rate that is reason enough for foreign patients to throng Indian hospitals, according to Pratap C. Reddy, chairman of the Apollo group of hospitals.

According to statistics offered by Apollo, they have had over 96,100 foreign patients coming to them for treatment between 1988 and 2002. Fertility treatment is one of the major draws for many of these.

Take the case of Wanjiru Espendal, who works as a nurse in London's St. George's Hospital. "Friends back home told me that IVF treatment in India is better than that in the U.K. and also much cheaper," said Espendal.

"Here, I spent $3,409, whereas had I gone through the treatment in the U.K., I would have spent over $11,363," she added.

Also, importantly, "Language is not a problem because all the medical staff with whom I need to interact understands English." And neither was food as "there was a long menu to choose from." The restaurants in all Apollo hospitals provide speciality cuisines such as Arab, Malaysian, Thai and Continental.

But cost remains the prime consideration. Basic orthopedic surgery in India would cost $4,000, whereas in the U.S. it would cost $30,000, said Apollo sources.

"If a kidney transplant in the U.S. costs $75-80,000 and in the U.K., £35-45,000, in India, it costs $7-8,000," said Dr. A.S. Soin, Kidney and liver transplant surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. And private nursing care is cheap as well, even compared to Thailand.

The Net has helped the cause of medical tourism in India. "Most foreign patients start enquires through e-mail or through the hospital web site," said Soin.

There are other ways as well to attract patients. Max Healthcare, a provider of standardized and integrated world class health care services, has foreign patients coming through corporate tie-ups with embassies and multinational corporations.

Apollo has information centers in neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh and appointments can be fixed from across the world through their web site. It also has a tie-up with the Tanzanian government, and also with authorites in Oman.

All these hospitals take considerable effort to make sure that their foreign patients enjoy a trouble-free stay. Both EHIRC and Apollo have special cells to take care of international patients and they provide all kinds of services from pick and drop from and to the airport to arranging accommodation for attendants.

Apollo even has its own travel agent, who arranges for sightseeing trips for patients and attendants. So the tourist industry benefits from the spin-offs of the medical visitor. And, in Chennai, it has three-bedroom apartment blocks in the city center, where patients and their families can stay for three to four months.

A handful of tour operators have seen that the way of the future is medical tourism, and say they are offering medi-tours to tourists who are interested.

A typical medi-tour would offer a combination of a therapy or treatment - whether mainstream or alternate - and recuperation at places of the visitor' s choice. The recuperation would often include popular tourist activities.

Visit medicaltourismindia.com, and you will find several offers for medical tourism, each one neatly packaged and presented.

The packages on offer here are Dental Packages, Heart Care Packages, Heart Surgery Packages, Health Check-Ups, and Cosmetic Treatment Packages. Each section contains the choices possible, a list of hospitals and rough costs.