The Rapid Growth of Medical Tourism in India

Medical tourism is rapidly growing these days. The idea of getting medically treated along with basking in the beautiful locales of foreign destinations can be exhilarating. This has begun to capture the fancy of people worldwide with India, Malaysia, and Mexico being amongst the most preferred destinations.

Medical Tourism also known as Health Tourism simply means travelling from one country to another in search of affordable and high quality medical treatment. Earlier people from developing countries would travel to developed countries in search of specialized treatment paying a very high cost. Reasons for traveling to other countries included unavailability of treatment in their home countries, long waiting periods for treatments, or ill-equipped medical facilities. This led to patients needing critical care traveling to locations with more advanced medical care. While initially it was affordable only to the wealthy sections of society, today these treatments have become more affordable.  

India is growing as a medical tourism hub and holds 18 percent of the global medical tourism market. Rated among the top 5 international destinations for medical tourism, India hosts thousands of medical tourists from the US, Canada, Australia, the UK as well as from African countries and Asian neighbours like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China.

As healthcare is becoming costlier in developed countries around the globe, foreign nationals in need of complicated treatment, surgeries, and operations are increasingly choosing India because of the country’s quality healthcare at a low cost. Procedures that cost into the six figures in the US or the UK cost as little as four figures in India. In 2018 over 500,000 medical tourists visited India for medical care and according to industry estimates, medical tourism in India is expected to double from its current value of around USD 3 billion to USD 9 billion by the year 2020. 

With the high demand of medical tourism in India, there has been a sharp rise in the services being offered to medical tourists during their treatment like apartments for stay, specialised treatments, and customisable recovery trips in neighbouring cities