Medical tourism gasps for breath

With the Home Ministry making visa rules more stringent...

With the Home Ministry making visa rules more stringent...

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna may have asked Shashi Tharoor to zip it, but the fact remains that visa clampdowns in the country have pricked the magic bubble of medical tourism in the city.

In fact, Tharoor's tweet on the visa rules making India a less attractive destination seems to be already coming true.

Cosmetic surgeon Manoj Manwani, who practices at CritiCare Hospital in Juhu, said foreign patients were now opting for East Asian countries.

"Indonesia and Thailand are becoming popular for medical tourists, as treatments there are as cheap as they are here and there aren't that many restrictions on visas.
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India Calling: Over half of medical tourists in India are from the US.

This trend has just begun and we can only hope that the market doesn't entirely shift there."

Admissions fall

Meanwhile, 21 foreigners currently occupy beds at Jaslok Hospital on Peddar Road. The usual number at this time of the year is 40.

Said hospital CEO M Masand "The visa restrictions after the Headley episode have deterred many people from coming to India for treatment. The political scene is hurting us a little."

Travel agents are not very optimistic.

"The new visa restrictions will affect medical tourism in the months to come, especially as 50 per cent of medical tourists are Americans.
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This will definitely affect our business," said Iqbal Mulla, chairman of International Medical Tourism (India) Pvt ltd.

Sujit Chatterjee, the CEO of L H Hiranandani Hospital in Powai, said, "Pundits had claimed that the industry was going to surpass $1 billion by the end of the decade, but we're not even halfway there yet."

Did You Know?
McKinsey estimates predict that the medical tourism industry can earn up to Rs 10,000 crore by 2012.

With inputs from Urvashi Seth