Kochi, Aug 29: With healthcare tourism gearing up to be the next boom in the country, time has come for India to move beyond Ayurveda and other alternate medicine to high-level specialised medical treatment, according to a top travel industry official.
India has tremendous potential to capture a major part of international healthcare treatment as it could offer easily accessible healthcare services that were at par with international standards, chief operating officer, Sita inbound division, Himmat Anand, told reporters here last night.
India could offer specialised medical treatment like transplantation of vital organs, cancer treatment, neuro treatment and cardiac surgery, he said adding the qualified doctors and other staff and extremely low treatment costs compared to the west made it an ideal proposition.
While heart surgery cost approximately USD 20,000 abroad in India it was around USD 5000. Knee joint replacement cost USD 16,000 as compared to USD 4500 in India, he said.
The main demand for this segment would come from the 20 million NRIs living all over the world.

Eyeing this potential, Sita World Travels had tied up with Vedicindia a medical NRI health management tourism company.

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The size of the medical tourism industry stands between Rs 1200 crore to Rs 1500 crore and was growing at the rate of 30 percent annually, Anand said.
Atleast 150,000 patients had shown interest for some medical treatment in India and 90 had already registered and paid up, he added.

Bureau Report