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India to target 1 million more medical tourists by 2010

EH Staff - Mumbai

The ministry of tourism has taken several steps to promote India as major health destination and targeted one million additional medical tourists by 2010. These arrivals could add extra foreign exchange up to Rs. 5,000-10,000 crore. Chairing the meeting of  the Consultative Committee on tourism, Renuka Chowdhury, minister of state for tourism, said that in collaboration with the medical industry, price bending of Indian hospitals has been completed to ensure uniform and reasonable prices for a particular treatment. Accreditation of hospitals, maintainence required international standards for the treatment, has also been done in association with CII and medical industry. Medical visa for six months to one year stay for treatment in India has also been launched. Ministry of Tourism for the first time took representatives of the hospital sector to the World Travel Mart held recently in London, for projecting Indian health facilities. The ministry is also working on a campaign, soon to be launched in overseas markets, to project India as an attractive medical tourism destination. These efforts will result in popularising India as a medical tourism destination, she added.

Chowdhury informed the members that India has strategic advantage in the healthcare area which include world-class doctors and excellent health care infrastructure coming up in private sector, availability of traditional Ayurvedic and other Indian health care wisdom along with the expertise of Western medicine and competitive cost of the treatment which is almost 1/5th of the Western countries. She said that even today we are getting medical tourists from over 55 countries for cardiac surgeries, multi-organ transplants like renal, liver, heart, and bone marrow transplants.

The minister said the government has also set up expert committees for sorting out issues regarding medical insurance and further human resource development in the medical tourism area. Tour operators have been advised to include Ayurveda health destinations in their marketing ventures in view of increasing popularity of Ayurveda in Western countries. The ministry has also produced brochures and CD-roms on medical tourism. Quoting from India Vision 2020 Report, prepared by CII - Mckinsey, Chowdhury said that medical tourism could become a rival to the IT sector within the next decade earning huge foreign exchange for the country.