Health Tourism

Introduction : Although a synonym of Medical Tourism as considered by many, Health Tourism is more concerned with alternative medicines, ayurveda, naturopathy, aromatherapy, beachs, backwaters, yoga, meditation, adventure, wildlife, cultural, historical and health care tour packages especially as offered in the tropical regions like India, Srilanka, Malaysia etc. Indian Tour operators have framed out packages that include hotels and resorts in their services which are exclusively reserved for Ayurvedic treatments, and sometimes also supplimented with yoga and meditation. Food plays a key role in health tourism. Only vegetarian food would be served while the tourists undergo Ayurvedic treatments for arthritis and paralysis. The contents of the meal differs from person to person depending upon individual health problems while ensuring that protein rich food is given at the treatment centers. However, for the really insisting ones, non-vegetarian food is served which are quite often limited to grilled or baked products.

Dental tourism

Introduction : Dental Tourism is another subset of medical tourism and is referred to cross-border travellers seeking make-overs relating to teeth, gum and jaws. Driven by price considerations, dental care seekers usually travel from high-income countries to low-cost developing economies that are well equipped with pseudo worldclass dental care machinery and provides quality dental services. Other factors that influence a decision to travel, include differences between the funding of public healthcare or general access to healthcare. Well equipped and promising low cost and high quality dental service outlets in Mexico, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, India, Australia, the Philippines and uncounted points in between are pitching their services to relatively affluent, yet cost-conscious health care consumers in Western Europe and the United States. Widely seeked dental services in dental care tourism include Dental Implants, Cosmetic Dentistry, Crowns and Bridges, Porcelin Veneers, Orthodontics, Teeth Whitening, Periodontics (Diagnosis, prevention and treatment of gum diseases), Oral Surgery, Restorative Dentistry (Fillings), Painless Root Canals, Complete Denture services, Ultrasonic Teeth Cleaning, Full mouth Rehabilitation, Skyce Tooth Jewellery, Nightguards and Pedodontics (Sealants, space maintainers).

Spread of Dental Tourism : Austrians, Germans and other Europeans for decades have been crossing over to Hungry to get their teeth fixed, often at jaw-droppingly low prices. Now, a small but growing number of Americans, prompted by soaring medical costs and dwindling insurance benefits at home, are following suit and are contributing to the rising popularity of "tooth tourism". Many of them traditionally combined dental visits with shopping for other lower-priced goods such as cigarettes and cheese.
Whereas U.S. and European dentists charge $300 to $400 for a single caries restoration, it costs only $20 to $40 in India. This is what makes it the most sought after tourism sectors in the developed countries especially for the burgeoning population of the middle-aged and above. An exotic vacation at a place known for extremely cheaper cost of living with all modern amenities, heritage spots, cultural and historical backlog, all encompassed diverse natural replenishments and of course world class dental care at their disposal is what attracts a majority of them to India. The state-of-the-art equipment and facilities are available with expert aesthetic dentist, prosthodontist, periodontist, implantologist, endodontist, orthodontist and oral and maxillo facial surgeons. All these competent facilities are in the European or American quality with affordable lowest price. Cosmetic Dentistry, Smile Designing, Teeth Whitening, Root Canal Treatment, Dental Implants and Gum Treatments are available in almost all major dental hospitals and clinics in India.

Cosmetic Care Travel

Introduction : Cosmetic Care tourism is a price-driven phenomenon that has experienced increased growth over the past decade. Companies offering all-inclusive vacation packages including cosmetic surgery, are popping up all over the world and can be easily located over the Internet. Popular Cosmetic Care Travel destinations include India, SriLanka, China, Turkey, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Thailand, Costa Rica, Mexico, UK and the USA. Cosmetic Surgery, Cosmetic Acupuncture and Naturopathy are common offshoots in the comfort zone of the cosmetic care industry.

India - An Emerging Destination : India has been fast emerging as a leading provider of quality cosmetic care travel offers, comparable service standards and pricing advantage. The most sought-after services in India from across the borders are laser, botox and fillers. Cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists say tourists in the age group of 20 to 30 years come for rhinoplasty (nose job) and liposuction, while those between 30 to 40 come to treat baggy eyelids. Those over 40 come for tummy tucks and face lifts. Other preferred make-overs include Breast Enhancement, Breast reduction, Breast Surgery, Hair Treatments, Brow Lifts, Eyelid Surgery, Cosmetic Dentistry, Face Lift Surgery, Abdominoplasty, Facial Implants, Blepharoplasty, Forehead Lift Surgery, Breast Augmentation, Gynecomastia, Breast Lift Surgery, Liposuction and Otoplasty. Americans are the biggest clients, followed by tourists from Eastern Europe, Far-East and even Japan. In fact, in the United States, cosmetic surgery is a luxury many middle-class Americans can’t afford. With naturopathy therapies such as ayurveda being well-accepted abroad, cosmetic tourism only seems a natural progression in India and is fast catching up in neighbourhood Srilanka.

Reproductive Tourism

Introduction : Gaining popularity in leaps and bounds is Reproductive tourism, which is the practice of cross-border health care that specializes at in-vitro fertilization(IVF) and other assisted reproductive technology treatments. The primary reason being cited at for this burgeoning trend in the tourism sector has been attributed to moral policing at its ostensible heights and, or medical infrastructure and expertise at its woeful depths. More and more couples are travelling abroad for fertility treatments which are banned in their own countries. An IVF specialist, for instance, complains that he must send British patients to a Spanish clinic for commercial egg donation and to the US for pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, because both practices are banned in the UK. Women are travelling to the Ukraine, Greece, Russia or India for cheaper treatment and to find egg donors. Even within the European Union, a legal patchwork of fertility legislation allows couples to shop for a country which allows the treatment they need. The legal system in the EU has instituted several curbs in the fertility treatment. It is illegal to use IVF for sex selection in the UK and to use surrogate mothers in France and Spain. In Spain, commercial egg donation is legal, while donation from someone related is not. In Denmark, it is illegal to receive an egg from someone unrelated. A recent article in the Washington Post has highlighted the story of a Virginia couple who after $70,000 worth of unsuccessful fertility treatments, have resorted to 'reproductive tourism' for one last shot at pregnancy. What motivates tourists to travel thousands of miles in search of treatments that they cannot obtain in their own country is the illusion of having children and thence, an enriched life. Internet and international communications allows them to have a fluent communication with the doctor before and after the trip. In countries like Sweden, England and the Netherlands, new legislation against anonymous donors has been enacted, resulting in endless waiting lists due to fewer donors.

Destinations : Among destination spots, Argentina, is receiving more and more patients from the United States and Europe. In certain countries such as Germany, Italy, Mexico and Chile ovule donation is expressly prohibited by law. Therefore, there are more and more couples looking for destinations such as Argentina, where the cost of the treatment can be one third of the price that they would have to pay in first-world countries. However, in this issue so related to illusions and personal realization, price is not the only thing that matters. When patients were asked about the reasons for choosing Argentina, they mentioned the warm treatment and comfort they received, in addition to the quality of the operations and availability of state-of-the-art technology. Argentina has had an experience of over 20 years in the field of Assisted Reproduction, which has generated well-trained and qualified professionals who perform each of the available techniques worldwide, achieving success indexes in line with international scores. The first-choice treatment for most of the patients who have traveled to this country is ovule donation. Due to their European physical features, Argentinean voluntary donors are quite requested. Pregnancy rates are about 50% for each attempt, taking utmost care in avoiding the fearful complication of a multiple pregnancy (more than two babies). Therefore, there are increasingly higher possibilities for a woman who receives embryos with donated ovules to come back home pregnant.

US citizens are crowding in to Israel and NewZeeland where fertility treatment is being effectively promoted. Several British couples keen to have children have been travelling to India for fertility treatment. In what is called "reproductive tourism" in India, the couples—many of them of Asian origin—find arranging for surrogate mothers in India far cheaper than the thousands of pounds they spend on fertility treatment in Britain.

Medical Tourism

Introduction : The term Medical Tourism has been gaining immense popularity in the prevalent health scenario. Being referred to as medical travel/health tourism/global healthcare, Medical Tourism combines the kinetics of tourism and the potentiality of medical treatment. This term has been typically coined by the mass media and the flourishing travel industry to describe the rapidly growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain medical treatment. Glorified by the medical fraternity as "Health Care", Medical treatment services include elective procedures as well as complex specialized surgeries such as Cosmetic surgeries, joint replacement (knee/hip), dental surgery and cardiac surgery. With Holistic medicines, Aromatherapy, Naturopathy, Magnetotherapy and Ayurveda catching up wide popularity, the trend seems to be fast catching up among the increasingly health conscious population of todays age. Initially, the practical nature of medical tourism had been debated among several quarters since the providers and customers commonly used informal channels of communication/contract, meaning less regulatory or legal oversight to assure quality and recourse to reimbursement or redress, if and when needed. Travel agents associate leisure aspects along with the medical package, and hence prospective medical tourism patients have to be aware and vigilant of the extra cost of travel and accommodations when deciding on treatment locations. Want a nose job? Combine it with a safari in South Africa. Want a Face lift? Go to Mexico and lollygag at the pool while you recover. Or, get bigger breasts in Bangkok and tummy tucks in Argentina. Although it's buyer beware, most Web-based medical tourism companies boast state-of-the-art facilities and highly trained medical staff.
Medical Tourism is in fact not a novel concept. People needing treatment in the past have been travelling long distances to destinations that were endowed with gifted natural locales and physicians. A dip in the holy Ganges river in India is considered to heal several ailments. This is due to the medicinal properties acquired by the churning out of herbs, roots, sand and stones by the raging waters rushing down the slopes of the flora-and-fauna-rich mighty Himalayas. Medical care combined with pilgrimage thus inspired many to flock the banks of the river Ganga.
Medical tourism destinations finding wider acceptability worldwide are India, Argentina, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Jordan, Lithuania, Hungary, Holand, Hong Kong, Cuba, Colombia, Brunei, New Zealand and Tunisia. For cosmetic surgery the destinations are India, Turkey, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. For reproductive tourism it is India and Argentina.

Medical Tourism in INDIA : India is also fast emerging as a prime location for cardiac and neurological care. Complex surgeries and transplants are being done at numerous hospitals across the vast expanse in India especially at Bangalore, Chennai, Bombay, Delhi and in the State of Kerala. Last year, one of the notable arrivals at Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, was 14-year-old Elliot Knott. In December 2004, the boy had a fall while ice-skating and was bed-ridden due to a major spinal injury. The doctor gave him an appointment in June 2005 and then told him that his surgery could only be possible in December that year or early 2006. The family decided to come to India and within two weeks of his arrival, Elliot was walking. He rejoined school as soon as he went back to the UK. In Punjab alone, more than five lakh NRIs make annual visits home. This single largest group of visitors is a big source of revenue, especially for the dental treatment and cosmetic surgery market. Also, every year half a million Britons and an equal number of US citizens visit India for vacation and sightseeing. They comprise the other large group of medical tourists which combines a vacation with low-cost cosmetic surgery or dental treatment. The third group of patients is from poor African nations or SAARC countries where the medical facilities are not developed. For them India is the best bet.

Cost Factor : Indian corporate hospitals are conforming to international standards, but the cost of treatment is about one-eighth to one-fifth of that in the US or the UK. Heart surgery in the US costs $30,000. In India, a top-of-the-line healthcare facility would charge about $6,000. Advanced orthopaedic surgery at a top tertiary care hospital in India costs around $6,000 as against $20,000 in the West. The treatment cost includes the cost of medicines and healthcare delivery. Also included are the hospital bed charges per day and the doctor’s fee. Room charges for a day in a top Indian hospital are Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000, whereas they come to $1000-1500 a day in the US.
Besides the cost factor, a number of reasons have contributed to the increase in the number of patients coming to India. The health delivery systems in many western countries are overburdened as patients face long waiting periods just to see a specialist. Whereas in India, the latest infrastructure and medical technology are now readily available and hospitals offer surgical techniques similar to those carried out in the West. Indian doctors are widely recognised as being among the best the world over. In fact, many Indian doctors practising in the West have actually come back to practise in top leading hospitals in Indian metros.