Medical tourism makes headway in Kerala

The next health trip

As healthcare costs in the West rise and the number of uninsured burgeons, medical tourism could well be the next big trip for Kerala as a destination.

Late in 2006 a news report from Kottayam said the Federation of Kerala Associations in North America (Fokana) was urging the Centre and the State Government to promote Kerala as a destination for medical tourism. "If Kerala does it," the Fokana president, Mr Sasidharan Nair, told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram, "there will be an unending stream of US citizens arriving in the State for their medical needs."

And the reason for that potent attraction was plainly explained by the Fokana General Secretary, Mr Aniyan George: "An open-heart surgery in the US costs Rs 9 million whereas it can be done at less than half a million rupees in Kerala. Dental treatment is another sector that has huge potential here." Little wonder then that Fokana has plans to bring out a directory of Kerala-based hospitals and doctors in the US.

Already, some non-resident Indian entrepreneurs have begun cashing in on the potential. According to a report by Kyle Arnold in The Brownsville Herald of Texas, Mr Hari Namboodiri, who grew up in Kerala, is setting up a travel-health company called Health Options International to send people to India for cost-effective medical surgeries.

"It's only about one-quarter or one-fifth of the cost to have a procedure done in India, even after travel costs," Mr Namboodiri told The Herald. He hopes to be able to arrange operations within just a week or two, saving patients thousands on elective surgeries such as gastric bypass or angioplasty. And guess where his sights are set for his health guests? Kerala.

Medical tourism - the practice of travelling to a foreign country for medical treatment - is becoming a booming industry as healthcare costs in the West rise and the number of uninsured burgeons. According to the US National Coalition on Health Care, about 46 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and about 500,000 people went out of the country last year for medical treatment.

No longer are developing countries suspect when it comes to technology and expertise. Arnold explains why: "One of the reasons that medical care in countries such as India has improved so dramatically in the last few years is the number of Indian doctors who are being trained in the US.

About 30 per cent of all graduate students in American universities are Indian, according to the US Department of State, and about 20 per cent of US doctors were born abroad, many of them Indian. That has allowed hospitals to gain international accreditation and even align themselves with well-known American institutions such as Johns Hopkins and Harvard University."

By combining medical procedures with tourism packages, the health tourism sector hopes to dangle a double attraction - along the lines of "Get your knees replaced and then sprint around to take in the sights and sounds of God's Own Country!" The handsomest draw to potential customers would be the savings, which, in some cases, could be more than $80,000 after travel arrangements, according to Mr Namboodiri.

Kerala's historically sustained emphasis on public health seems to be paying off in all this. Kerala has long reported the highest per capita expenditure on public health among all the Indian States. Kerala today has the country's most advanced and equitable healthcare system. The average Keralite's penchant for therapeutic and curative treatment transcends systems of medicine. The modern Western-oriented allopathic and homeopathic systems co-exist happily with a host of alternative indigenous systems, including ayurveda.

During the southwest monsoon months of June to August, ayurveda clinics and spas do brisk business since the rainy season is traditionally acknowledged to be particularly congenial for ayurvedic therapies. Rejuvenation packages range from the simple body massage with herbal oils and powders at Rs 250 ($6) to an intensive four-week package costing Rs 350,000 ($8041).

A 2003 study by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the consultancy firm McKinsey predicted that by 2012, medical tourism alone could contribute up to Rs 10,000 crore (approx. $2.3 billion) in additional revenue to upmarket tertiary hospitals in India and will account for 3 to 5 per cent of the total Indian healthcare delivery market. In 2003, of the 2.5 million who visited India, about 12 per cent opted for health tours.

Kerala's comparative advantages in medical tourism are, of course, the cost of medicare and the skill levels of its trained doctors and surgeons. A hip replacement surgery that could cost up to $12,000 in the West can be done in Kerala for less that one-third that amount. A regular dental filling that would cost Euro 400 in Austria would cost merely Euro 10 in Kerala. Most surgeries can be done in Kerala at a tenth of the cost that would be charged in a Western hospital. Clearly, medical tourism seems to be the next health trip for Kerala.