Medical tourism in India
- Addressing the 127th Founder’s Day Celebrations of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital the Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh has said the Government is promoting the emergence of India as a medical destination to the world.
- The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has taken several steps towards boosting medical tourism such as extending e-Visa to 161 countries.
- Besides, the MHA has extended the duration of stay on e-Visa from 30 to 60 days and also allowed triple entry in e-Medical Visa cases.
- The government policy aims to promote integrated treatment with allopathy, ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homoeopathy (AYUSH) streams.
- The Union commerce ministry, along with ministries of tourism and health, has already launched a portal, indiahealthcaretourism.com, in three languages – Arabic, Russian and French— to provide comprehensive information to medical travellers.
- Medical tourism in India is projected to be a $9 billion opportunity by 2020. Currently, medical tourism industry is pegged at $3 billion. Globally, the medical tourism market is estimated at around $40-60 billion.
- A latest knowledge paper by FICCI and Quintiles IMS shows over 5,00,000 foreign patients seek treatment in India each year.
- SAARC countries such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Maldives are the major sources of medical value travel, followed by African countries such as Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya.
 Health sector in India
- India is a country of 125 crore people, providing Healthcare to all is a huge challenge.
- Doctor-patient ratio in India is 1:1700 whereas WHO’s prescribed limit is 1:400.
- Government has introduced the Ayushman Bharat scheme to provide the best healthcare for the poor and needy.
- Ayushman Bharat is the National Health Protection Scheme, which will cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries), providing medical insurance cover up to Rupees 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
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