– Hospitals, travel operators welcome plan for a dedicated board for unregulated sector
by Sumi Sukanya
New Delhi :
The tourism ministry plans to establish a medical tourism board tasked with devising strategies to draw more foreign patients to India and setting standards for an industry that many believe has burgeoned unchecked.
Hospitals welcomed the proposal saying it would help draw Western tourists to India’s health care institutions, whose foreign clients now come mostly from other South Asian countries, West Asia and Africa.
The board will have representatives from the tourism and health ministries, hospitals and the travel industry.
“This sector has grown on its own over the past decade but is largely unorganised,” tourism minister Mahesh Sharma told The Telegraph.
“We want the board to help interlink all the key players in this sector to provide seamless service to patients.”
The proposal will soon be sent to the cabinet as part of the national tourism policy 2015, said Suman Billa, a joint secretary in the tourism ministry.
“We need standardised procedures in place to organise the industry. One of the focuses would be to put in place guidelines to ensure the quality of the services,” Billa said.
India is among Asia’s top three medical tourism destinations (after Thailand and Singapore), drawing patients mainly because of the lower treatment costs compared with the West, and the country’s quality health care infrastructure and highly skilled doctors, says a 2014 report by industry chamber Ficci.
About 2.3 lakh foreign patients sought treatment in India last year. The country’s medical tourism industry is expected to touch $6 billion (around Rs 38,000 crore) by 2018, the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates.
“It’s not just big hospitals but wellness centres, particularly in south India, that are drawing tourists from western countries,” Billa said.
Delhi is one of India’s top medical tourism destinations for those seeking advanced surgical procedures. Karnataka and Kerala have been attracting patients mainly through their naturopathy and Ayurveda centres.
Nishant Jain, associate vice president with Fortis Healthcare, lauded the government’s initiative.
“The Union government has been taking several positive steps to help the sector, like a medical visa regime, but a board set up specifically for the purpose will give a value advantage to the industry,” he said.
The hospital chain received 14,000 foreign patients last year, most of them at its centres in the National Capital Region.
“Such a board has been a longstanding demand from the industry,” said Karan Thakur, a senior doctor at Apollo Hospitals, Delhi, some 12 to 14 per cent of whose 750 beds are occupied by foreign patients at any given time.
“The medical and wellness tourism industry in India has been doing well for itself but a handheld approach from the government would mean we can tap the market even in developed countries, as opposed to developing countries, from where we get the maximum patients now,” Thakur said.
Sandeep Bafna of India Travels, a Bangalore-based tour operator that organises wellness trips for foreigners, said the Centre should focus on advertising what Indian health care institutions can offer tourists.
“The government’s Incredible India campaign has helped build goodwill about the country. If the government is really serious about health tourism, its focus should be on advertising,” he said.
“It will particularly help tour operators and health centres that lack the financial resources to campaign on their own.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta, India / Front Page> Story / by Suki Sukanya / New Delhi – June 19th, 2015
