Travellers from across the seven seas have gone India for their medical wellbeing and in search of genuine indigenous (generic) medicines which cost half the price and have the same effectiveness. Since the 16th century Europeans have travelled for their rejuvenation therapies across the silk route.
Medical travel is a form of tourism or more specifically medical tourism.
We can specifically say these are not the same as medical travel deals with more specific and serious branches of medicine wherein surgery by admission to the hospital is required.
The patients need intervention to save their lives in specific disciplines like cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics, neurology and many more. While medical tourism basically caters more for dental and cosmetic procedures where treatments are done in day care setups and the patients or clients don’t need to be admitted to hospital for their procedures and take multiple sittings to have their procedures done.
Why medical travel?
Many countries' healthcare systens have not yet developed and certain procedures are not performed in most countries so patients need to travel to countries like India for procedures like CABG (heart bypass surgeries), valve replacements, joint replacements, onco surgeries like breast conservation for breast cancer patients, paediatric heart.
When home countries fall short in providing the level of medical care required, patients travel to undergo these lifesaving procedures in other countries like India, therefore, medical travel becomes necessary.
Why India?
lCost effectiveness — India is about 90% cheaper than most countries across the globe including developed countries
lQuality of care — Top end infrastructure so much that the investment in healthcare sector has grown 21 times
lQuality of medical professionals — Multi discipline hospitals with everything under one roof provide quality services
Forty percent of the world top surgeons are indian which speaks of the skillset — skill and knowledge enhancement is a constant endeavour
lEradicated language barriers
lMulti-cultural society and acceptance of outsiders
lTrust, transparency, cost effective and safety are the four pillars of quality healthcare delivery
What are the basic accepted norms of the medical travel consultants?
lEffective track record
lHigh understanding of the modus operandi
lTransparency towards the infrastructure, specialists, urgency, logistics, integration and adaptability
lAccountability
lCreativity towards easing the patient and his family's travel
lEnsuring complete confidentiality and ability to breach the thin line between empathy and sympathy
lAbility to checklist the complete itinerary including foresight into reducing stay in a foreign country
My experience with medical travel
I went as a patient and came back happy becoming part of a family with a commitment to help my countrymen to have a hassle-free medical travel experience.
Although I still need more procedures to help me in complete recovery, the optimism and mental strength that I got from the professionals and my consultant has made me realise that I am blessed by the divine. The belief that I will be back to being myself has made my experience better not bitter.
