India Emerging As Major Destination For Quality Healthcare

Medical sector is growing day by day in India. Foreign patients travelling to India to seek medical treatment in 2012, 2013 and 2014 numbered 171,021, 236,898, and 184,298 respectively.

India offers medical facilities, including critical care at one-tenth of the cost of U.S wellness is now a top priority and quality healthcare is more accessible compared to a decade ago. Government is also focusing on several areas including quality standards and easy visa processes to make India a global destination for healthcare services. India is a great location for foreign patients “because this is a place where entire range of healthcare sector finds place.”

The market size of India’s healthcare sector is expected to increase USD 160 billion by 2017 from around 79 billion currently. As Indian healthcare sector develops, a new term has been coined called ‘Medical Tourism’, which is the process of people from all comes of the world visiting India to seek medical and relaxation treatments. The most common treatments sought are heart surgery, knee transplant, cosmetic surgery and dental care. Medical tourism chooses India as their favorable destination because of the key opportunities in Indian healthcare sector in the form of efficient infrastructure and technology. The health insurance market and national medical system here are well developed, which is convenient for visitors from the West and Middle East. They also find the hospital expenses very affordable. But one of the many challenges it faces is to provide good quality, affordable healthcare to all. For this, there is a need to reduce inequalities, imbalances that exist between regions, cities, villages and different socioeconomic groups. The Minister said that India has done exceptionally well in the past three years in tourism sector, with overseas footballs expanding at near 20% average every year.