by super | Mar 29, 2022 | Medical Industry, Medical Tourism Hospitals India, Qualified Doctors
As we are moving forward in years, we could see how India is becoming the most preferred healthcare destination among the foreigners.
A growing number of tourists are flocking to India for the superlative medical treatment that is being provided by the skilled doctors. This has made India grow as a hub for the medical tourists every year. The prime reason being the cost of medical treatment in India being cheaper when compared to Western Europe, North America and some Southeast Asian countries. India has been getting a good revenue turnover from its medical tourism from past 4 to 6 years.
he NITI Aayog (The National Institute of Transforming India) identified the Medical Value Travel as a major source of foreign exchange earnings. According to a report by FICCI and IMS Health- India has nearly 18% of the global medical tourism market. In the sense, the MVT was pegged at $ 3 billion in the year 2015 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth rate) of 15%. Also, it has been estimated that India’s medical tourism industry could be worth $9 billion, and account for 20% of the global market share by 2020. The report even pointed out that India enjoyed high credibility in wellness, prevention, and alternative medicines.
“The total number of patients visiting India in the year 2017 was 4.95 Lakh,” as said by KJ Alphons in a written reply to Lok Sabha. Research also depicts that the number of the patients arriving in India for treatment stood 2.34 Lakh and 4.27 Lakh in the year 2015 and 2016 respectively. Of which, patients from Bangladesh and Afghanistan have always stayed at the top and continue to rank higher in terms of a maximum number of medical tourists arrivals in India. It is estimated that 2.21 Lakh medical tourists from Bangladesh came to India in the year 2017, 2.10 Lakh in 2016 and 1.20 Lakh in 2015. So, we can clearly see how the number is rising each year. Similarly, the highest number of medical tourists from Afghanistan was in the year 2015 – 27,505. In the year 2016 it reached to a whooping number of 61,231 and declined a little to 55,681 in the year 2017. Other than these two countries, medical tourists from Oman, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Iraq and Yemen visit India as well.
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TOP REASONS WHY INDIA IS BECOMING FAMOUS AS A MEDICAL TOURISM DESTINATIONS
Being one of the fastest growing medical destinations around the world, India is predicted to drive higher with time. Everybody can get tertiary medical treatment in India which is either not available or people cannot afford it in their home country. Here are 7 major factors which make India an ideal medical tourism spot.
Low Cost of Treatment when compared to the first world countries like the US and UK. Getting Visas for medical purpose is much easier than ever. Access to immediate service is what attracts the foreign medical tourists. Surgeries are done almost immediately. Even though India is a developing country, it provides world-class and standardized medical services and care with the help of the latest technology. Post retreatment recovery provided to the patients with therapies like Ayurveda, Naturopathy and Yoga. India provides an opportunity to the medical tourists to visit some of the most alluring and awe-inspiring places by taking them on a medical tourist trip. India has a strong base of qualified and skilled doctors. Another major factor that has made India succeed in inviting the medical tourists is the populace of good English speaking doctors, guides and medical staff which makes it easier for the foreign tourists to correlate well to Indian doctors.
by super | Mar 29, 2022 | Medical Industry, Medical Tourism Hospitals India, Qualified Doctors
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, international air travel has completely come to a halt. This has severely affected medical travelers, who are unable to fly to another country at the moment to seek quality and affordable healthcare abroad.
However, once the international air travel resumes, it will no longer feel the same. The social norms at the airport, airlines, and among the passengers are expected to change once the aviation industry resumes its operations in the post-COVID-19 era.
In the past few weeks, several international passenger airlines have announced a tentative timeline around which they plan to restart their operations, once again allowing people to travel from one country to the other. But there are a lot of things that the airlines and the source and destination airports are working on to make the transit safe and hassle-free to the passengers as well as the crew members.
Coronavirus is here to stay and even the World Health Organization (WHO) says that COVID-19 does not seem like something which will completely go away. While things may improve substantially once a cure or a vaccine is available for COVID-19, people and industries have to independently ensure the safety of their consumers and take all measures proactively to prevent further outbreak or surge in coronavirus cases due to loopholes in their operations.
The same goes for the airlines’ industry as they plan to resume its operations. The airlines and international airlines operators have to be extremely careful to protect the health of its travelers while ensuring that there are no cases of cross-country infections.
From a medical traveler’s point of view, it is important to know what these measures are to feel safe and comfortable before traveling to another country for medical treatment.
A medical traveler’s health, in most cases, is already compromised. They are not like a normal passenger traveling to another country for leisure or business. Therefore, it is all the more important to know what measures the airlines and receiving airport has implemented before knowing that it is alright for them to travel.
While a healthy person’s immunity may be robust enough to ward off infections by itself, medical travelers need to pay special attention to the arrangements that have been made to prevent people against COVID-19 as their immunity may already be compromised.
This article highlights some of the concrete ways by which international commercial airlines and airports are preparing themselves to allow movement of people, including medical travelers. Needless to mention, the sanitization and hygiene protocols will anyway be mandatory at all checkpoints of a travelers’ journey after international commercial flights resume its services.
Limited Flights To Limited Countries
Most of the airline operators around the world are planning to resume commercial flights, domestic as well as international, in a phased approach. Initially, all major flight operators such as Emirates, Etihad, Turkish Airlines, and Lufthansa are planning to resume commercial airlines to selected countries in June 2020 and would gradually expand their reach to other parts of the world in the third quarter of the year.
Resuming commercial airline operations in a phased manner will help in two ways:
The countries will get to know if there is any surge in coronavirus cases due to possible infections brought in by a foreign national and whether or not to keep international travel limited.The gradual increase in international traffic will give the airport authorities enough time to ensure that the measures that have adopted are enough for people and if the crowd is conforming to the guidelines concerning social distancing. Any hiccups during the process can be identified and more robust arrangements can be made to ensure passenger safety in the coming times.
Social Distancing at Airports and Inside Flights
The airline operators in India and several other countries have initiated mock drills to train its staff on how to practice and follow social distancing guidelines while handling the travelers when the commercial passenger flights resume as per the schedule.
Most of the busiest airports in the world, including the Frankfurt airport, are also preparing themselves to receive international travelers. They have started to identify the areas where travelers generally have to wait in queues, including security checkpoints, baggage claim, and check-in counters. Efforts have been made already by the airport authorities to ensure that people conform to the rules of social distancing and have at least a 1.5 to 2 feet gap between them.
Some airlines are planning to implement self-check-in from home and provision to add baggage tags by the passengers themselves to avoid unnecessary crowds at the counters.
Several airports are considering using just one or two terminals to operate initially until commercials flights start running in full swing. Measures such as rear boarding, allowing only six passengers to board at a time through step-ladder (with a distance of 3 steps each between them), and keeping the middle row empty between two passengers are some of the rules that certain flight operators and airport authorities are planning to implement.
Deep-Cleaning and Sanitization
Deep-cleaning and sanitization protocols will be mandatorily followed by every airport authority and commercial airline operator once international travel resumes.
Airline operators are expected to carry the sanitization process after every one-way trip. On the other hand, the sanitization process at airports (including for marked areas, trolleys, and railings) will be carried out after every few hours each day as decided by the authorities depending on the number of visitors and daily operating flights.
Restrictions on In-Flight Services, Cabin Baggage
Many airlines are now planning to initially limit the cabin baggage that a person can carry with them to laptops, handbags, and baby items. Emirates, for example, has resumed several flights to certain countries, including those in the European Union. However, certain restrictions are there for the passengers that they have to follow to avoid COVID-19 transmission.
Travelers are now requested to check-in three hours before boarding for the recommended safety procedures. Also, the flight operator has temporarily stopped their lounge and chauffeur services and the distribution of in-flight reading material. The food and beverage services continue to remain available but with certain modifications.
Automated Passenger Screening At Airports
Automation is likely to become common at many international airports, especially the busiest ones. The use of technology involving robotics and bio-metrics is expected to be given high importance because it limits human involvement to carry out important functions, which could be highly useful at the airports.
Automation is also likely to be promoted because passengers would demand minimal human interaction and less need to touch surfaces, both of which can curb the risk of COVID-19 infection.
Therefore, medical travelers can expect to experience a range of contactless and self-service technologies that allows the authorities to conduct virtual health screening using thermal cameras and sensors.
For example, Etihad Airlines is working in close collaboration with Elenium Automation to develop a range of contactless services that can be utilized at health screening kiosks and baggage drop area at the airports with minimal to no human interaction.
Cabin Crew With Face Shields, Masks and Gloves
Gloves and masks have been made mandatory for all employees and staff at the airport and those working with the airlines. However, many airlines have made it mandatory for passengers to weak face masks throughout all stages of their journey.
by super | Mar 29, 2022 | Medical Industry, Medical Tourism Hospitals India, Qualified Doctors
What is Medical Tourism?
Medical tourism (or health tourism) is a comparatively new direction in the worlds practice. One cannot consider medical tourism to be a branch of tourism in general. This is a separate service sphere for people with extensive health issues. The inability to receive proper healthcare services pushed the development of health tourism and gave patients the possibility to look for diagnostic and treatment alternatives abroad. Willingness to become a patient of foreign healthcare institution may be connected with several reasons such as: poor state of medicine in the patients native country, lack of trust of the skills of local doctors, unsuccessful previous diagnostic tests and treatment, the desire to receive TOP-quality medical services, and availability of innovative treatment methods abroad. Thus, according to official data, the number of people going abroad for medical issues increases annually by 20 %. It has to be mentioned, that this statistic data includes world medical tourism in general, regardless of the level of medical service in the native country of a patient. Let us explain here about how medical tourism works and what should a potential client of a foreign hospital take into consideration.
Kinds of Medical Tourism
Medical tourism market can roughly be divided into several areas: Treatment abroad – includes only offers related directly to the health problems Aesthetic procedures – plastic surgery, cosmetology and aesthetic dentistry Diagnostic programs – are popular among those patients whom the doctors in their homeland cannot establish a certain diagnosis. Also, those people who doubt their diagnosis go for diagnostics abroad Spa treatment – is also a branch of health tourism, but not for direct treatment.
This kind of medical tourism is chosen by people with minor chronic diseases, as well as with the purpose of prevention and relaxation
Popular Treatment Destinations abroad A question is, where exactly do medical tourists go and what complaints do they have to refer to the foreign specialists?
According to the International Association of Medical Tourism, the following destinations are the most popular: Plastic surgery and dentistry. Patients most often go to hospitals in Turkey, South Korea and Thailand to get treated with aesthetic or plastic surgeon. Cardiology and cardiac surgery. German hospitals are in the highest demand for the treatment of cardiovascular pathologies. Here they have the highest rate of successful coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures. Orthopedics and traumatology. The most sought after orthopedic procedure is joints endoprosthetics. Hospitals in Germany and the Czech Republic have a good reputation when it comes to dealing with this area of medicine. Oncology and oncologic hematology. Treatment of cancer is a priority for the United States, Germany, and Israel. Hospitals in Turkey and South Korea have also greatly proved themselves in the treatment of cancer. Transplantation. Turkey and India are a popular destination for organ transplantation. Neurology. Treatment of neurological diseases (multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, etc.) is best provided in Germany, Israel and Turkey. IVF and childbirth – is a sought after area of healthcare. Turkish hospitals occupy the first place when it concerns IVF. USA and Thailand should also be mentioned in this area. Diagnostics. To confirm or deny a diagnosis, to get a second opinion patients most often go to Germany and Israel. A popular treatment option among medical tourists is a comprehensive “check-up” procedure involving a complex diagnostics of the whole body. Rehabilitation. The majority of patients travel to Germany, Turkey and Israel for neurological, orthopedic or psychiatric rehabilitation.
As can be seen, Germany and Turkey are the most popular destinations for medical tourism. No doubt, the state of healthcare is very established as the healthcare system is a priority direction in the economy of these countries.
