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S. A. Hanan
Srinagar :

Medical tourism is a well-established concept now. However, Dental Tourism is a new concept in this part of the world, although elsewhere particularly in places where dental treatment expenses are higher, people prefer to treat their tooth ailments once on a holiday trip to some locations, and even plan their vocations to the places where they also can treat their dental ailments at lower expenses.
In view of professional manpower available and relatively lesser dental care expenses; Kashmir has the potential of growing into an ideal place for dental tourism.

Valley has no dearth of professional dental doctors. Besides, the local dental doctors who pass out from the regional dental college here, many return back to valley from outside the State as well as the country after completing their degrees in dentistry.

A tourist, desi or a foreigner besides visiting exotic locations here in Kashmir can also go back with the sparkling teeth, if the dental care and treatment is made available to him/her at an affordable price.

Kashmir besides being rich in conventional tourist resorts as well as having potential of adventure sports can add dental tourism aspect to its USP to vow tourist both from India and abroad.

The land has a potential of becoming what Chandigarh was once to Kashmiri patients in terms of getting specialized medical treatment.

The Srinagar city and its outskirts have already witnessed setting of some modern dental clinics, which not only provide the employment to the entrepreneur him/herself but to many other allied dental staff.

Talking to one of the entrepreneurs, Dr Nazir Sofi, a member of American Dental Association who runs his clinic at Chanpora (Lalnagar) Bypass by the name of Advanced Dental Concept said, Kashmir has a lot of potential as far as the dental tourism is concerned. Though the concept is new in this part of the world, but there is no reason, why it cannot be developed here in view of the highly trained manpower and ‘state of the art’ infrastructure available in the State.

Talking about the infrastructure available here, he said, for instance, in my clinic; all the machines are ‘state of the art’ imported machines, and all the materials used also comply with the European and American standards.

Like in Europe or for that matter in other parts of the world, we use distilled water in our machines; besides, we also strictly follow the standard sterilization protocol in the clinics, he said, adding,  we are already witnessing many foreign tourists visiting our clinic for curing their emergency dental problems and they leave the clinic quite satisfied.

“For most of the American, Europeans, and in some other parts of the world, dental care and treatment is very expensive and is normally unaffordable in the absence of proper insurance cover. And one can also imagine the high premium they have to pay for dental insurance,” Dr Nazir said.

Without going into the specifics, Dr. Nazir said, if we compare the expenses one has to incur could be lesser by 95% or more here in the valley than what a normal American or European would have to spent for any kind of dental ailment.
He added, it is now upto the government to do its part in realizing the potential of dental tourism in valley, and on our part, we have kept all the facilities available for the patients.

Talking about the local dental health scenario, he said, “The awareness about dental health is also very poor in our State. We get the patients in our clinic who usually have never seen a dentist in their lifetime. They approach us when the tooth pain becomes unbearable. This trend needs to change and people need to be made aware about the importance of dental health and care.”
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Some successful entrepreneurs of the valley also have the view that besides a number of doctors who return to valley after completing their degrees in dentistry in and outside the country would not have to wait for government jobs and can generate employment for themselves as well as others provided government helps them in developing as well as creating the environment and awareness about the dental care facilities in the valley.

They further opine that dental treatments in Kashmir, at par with the international standards can also boost the already declining tourism industry of Kashmir.
The highly skilled dentists, clinics equipped with latest technology, and infrastructure can lure lot of tourists from Indian states as well as from abroad if packaged properly with other tourism related incentives, Kashmir can offer.
Director Tourism Kashmir Talat Parvez while talking to Rising Kashmir said that usually people along with their families come here on holidays and they can also benefit from medical facilities and for that matter dental care facilities here.
“At the moment the Tourism Department does not have any specific project in hand that would encompass the dental tourism, but we certainly have schemes where we can provide incentives to people who would want to contribute towards tourism sector, that would include the dental tourism also,” he said.
Director tourism added that his department would certainly look into this aspect of tourism in future.
He agreed with Rising Kashmir that no such campaign at present has been started by the government to create awareness about the potential of dental tourism in the State.

We would need proper infrastructure and facilities in this sector before we could initiate any campaign to lure tourists into medical or dental tourism.
Talking to Rising Kashmir earlier, Talat had said, “It is good that media is highlighting the concept of medical tourism in Kashmir. We are one of the best tourist destinations in Asia and medical tourism has lot of scope here,” Parvez said.
Parvez had said that State government is making all the efforts to bring Kashmir on a world map of medical tourism.

source: http://www.risingkashmir.com / Rising Kashmir / Home> Kashmir / by S. A. Hanan / Srinagar – May 05th, 2014