Back Ground to a new concept of Indian Medical outsourcing

Can Delhi be a successful model for medical tourism?

Although Delhi has witnessed an unprecedented growth in health care industry, how far has the capital become successful in attracting the medical tourist to its swanky and big hospitals?

When baby Noor Fatima, a two-and-a-half- year old Pakistani girl, successfully underwent an open heart surgery in India, she opened news vistas reminding the potential of medical tourism. The Ministry of External Affairs took this opportunity to encourage medical diplomacy, by facilitating the visit of cabinet ministers and provincial leaders to India for treatment.

Medical tourism is the buzzword now. The government as well as private players are keenly assessing the potential and means to tap the same. The boom in state-of-the-art hospitals and well-qualified doctors, have attracted the patient population from neighbouring countries, the Middle East and the West.

The equation is ‘First World treatment’ at “Third World prices”. A CII-McKinsey report last year, postulating the opportunities in health tourism, states that the medical tourism market in the country pegged a 30 per cent growth in 2000 and it has been growing at the rate of 15 per cent for the past five years.

“By 2012, if medical tourism were to reach 25 per cent of revenues of private up-market players, up to Rs 10,000 crore will be added to the revenues of these players,” adds the report. One of the Indian states, Kerala, setting an example by attracting health tourists, has emerged successful in generating revenues from medical tourism. Hospital groups in Delhi have realised the potential of health/ medical tourism but most of them are playing it by the ear.

Among private players, Apollo has been a forerunner in health tourism. It has been a choicest destination for patients from Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The group has tied up with hospitals in Mauritius, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Yemen besides running a hospital in Sri Lanka, and managing a hospital in Dubai.

In 2002, the number of patients who visited the hospital was 3001 and about 700 were hospitalised. Along with providing treatment, the stay of the foreign patients is taken care of by the hospital itself. The group has tied up with hotels in Delhi for this purpose. According to Dr. Chabra, additional medical director, ISIC (Indian Spinal Injury Centre), ISIC is another destination for patients from neighbouring countries, Gulf and a few NRIs from the US.

Now, to attract more people, the emphasis is on vacation plus treatment and special packages have been planned for this. On the anvil is another plan to make the patients and their relatives stay in the hospital complex with all the luxuries a hotel provides. Dr Shakti Gupta, AIIMS, stresses on the need to export health services. According to him, Indian doctors, medical services, and hospitals are at par with good hospitals in Europe and the US, so it is the right time to make the most of it.

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