Medical tourism to fetch Rs 10,000 cr annually by 2010

New Delhi, Aug 30 (UNI) Union Minister for Tourism Ambika Soni today said that medical value travel is likely to become a Rs 10,000 crore industry by 2010, registering a sharp growth of 25 per cent per year.

''To maximise opportunities in this sector, it is necessary to foster public-private partnerships, but the healthcare sector should not forget the common man in its drive to attract more foreign medical value travelers,'' Ms Soni said at the release of the Incredible India Brochure: Medical Tourism, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Indian Healthcare Federation (IHF) here.

Ms Soni said the on-going Incredible India campaign would aggressively promote Indian hospitals abroad as centres offering the best medical services. In addition, availing medical services in India cost about a tenth of what they do in the West.

''In order to promote Brand India, we are partnering in International Tourism in Berlin 2007, the leading tourism trade fair,'' she said.

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said the government is considering the Clinical Establishment bill that would mandate accreditation for hospitals down to the district and village levels.

The government would introduce international standards to the healthcare supply chain. He said just 2-3 per cent of Indians had any form of health insurance. This would have to increase manifold in order to make healthcare accessible to everybody.

''This will result in a massive surge in medical insurance in the next five years,'' Dr Ramadoss said.

The traditional healthcare system, comprising Ayurveda, Homoeopathy and Sidha has about 7 lakh practitioners. The government had launched a Rs 125 crore project for the scientific validation of these.

The aim was to integrate these with the allopathic systems of medicine and thereby increase its coverage, the Minister said.

CII's National Committee on Healthcare Chairman Naresh Trehan said India is being recognised as a quality destination for medical value travel. CII, IHF, and the Ministries of Tourism and Health and Family Welfare have developed a strategy to position Indian as a global hub for the quality conscious medical tourists.

Dr Trehan said medical value travelers come seeking both quality and cost-effective healthcare. India now offers the latest techniques such as robotic surgery, gamma-knife treatment for brain tumours and other medical procedures. The efficacy of treatment compares with that in the West, with the death rate from coronary bypasses at 0.8 per cent compared to 2.35 per cent in the US.

He said medical procedures in India are even cheaper than in Thailand, the other main medical tourism destination in the region.

For example, bone marrow transplants cost 30,000 dollars in India and 62,500 dollars in Thailand.

Dr Trehan said people from the West sought medical assistance abroad because their own systems were over-burdened. Healthcare systems in Europe and the US are under severe pressure, with patients having to wait for over a year for surgery.

CII has suggested to the government to facilitate medical value travel by streamlining visa procedures for the patient and an attendant, said Dr Trehan.

It would also help if those seeking medical treatment in India were allowed to use the under-utilised diplomatic desks at immigration counters, he said.

There are 50 million people in the US without medical insurance, and for them domestic treatment costs are prohibitive. Their medical treatment in India is now facilitated by tie-ups between the insurance companies in the US and private Indian hospital chains, Dr Trehan said.

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