Category Archives: Medical Tourism/Health Tourism

Jeddah:

Some 22,000 Saudi tourists visited India as foreign tourist arrivals into the country touched 5.78 million in 2010, Indian tourism officials told a press conference at a Road Show here recently.

The Road Show was conducted by the Indian Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Consulate General of India Jeddah.

One of the highlights of the Road Show was the ‘Medical & Wellness’ Tourism potential of India. Within the scope of this, India’s vast potential as a Health and Wellness tourism destination, backed by its medical facilities and world-class doctors and hospitals, ancient healing systems such as ‘Ayurveda’ and other rejuvenating programs coupled with modern medical amenities as also the diverse tourism products such as rural tourism and culture, were showcased during the Road Show. Strong growth is being recorded in health and wellness tourism in Saudi Arabia, which is dominated by medical tourism.

Travel agencies recorded an increase in 2010 in the number of outbound business tourists travelling to health-related trade events, pointing to a willingness to enhance the Kingdom’s healthcare sector and to be able to cater for more medical tourists.

India is a perfect destination for medical tourism that combines health treatment with visits to some of the most alluring and awe-inspiring places of the world. A growing number of tourists from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are flocking in large numbers because of the superlative medical care, equipments and facilities that India offers.

The cost of medical services in India is lower than that in Western countries and the most cost effective in the region. Indian hospitals excel in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, joint replacements, transplants, cosmetic treatments, dental care, orthopedic surgery and much more. All medical treatments and investigations are done using the latest, technologically advanced diagnostic equipments. The cost of infertility treatments in India is almost 1/4th of that in developed nations.

Nawang Rigzin, Minister for Tourism and Culture of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, said “Kashmir is safe now. This is evident from more than two million visitors to the state last year.

The Road Show also highlighted what makes India the most favored destination for a holiday and business traveler. Rapid improvements in accessibility and infrastructure, well trained human resources, falling prices and an aggressive multi-pronged marketing campaign under the banner ‘Incredible India’ have given a huge boost to the tourism sector and have helped make the multi-faceted sub-continent into one of the most sought after holiday destinations in the world. – SG _

source: http://www.SaudiGazette.com.sa / Business / Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Medical tourism as it is popularly known does not mean that it is some loose tourism and some healthcare screening tests or some easy to go wellness package. As name, medical tourism suggests it is sort of medical evacuation for some urgent medical illness, which needs to provide some relief by some medical procedure at some overseas destination. Some people have named it as medic travel, global healthcare or even health tourism.

It all started with people going overseas and finding exceptionally low costs of surgical procedures and most of the people when for screening and plastic and cosmetic surgery procedures. But now medical tourism has evolved beyond it and patients and tourists are finding help for complex procedures like cancer and neurosurgery. Medical tourism is also becoming famous due to finding top class doctors in their fields of specialization at destination over seas. Thus providing a chance for a patient to be treated by a specialist in his field which some times is hard to find in their native country. Also the scheduling of the appointments is give priority at destinations of medical tourism which is not the case in their native country due to high number of such cases and long waiting lists for surgeries.

The medical tourism, part as plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery procedures been very attractive due to many insurances did not provide coverage to procedures done under the name of cosmetic surgery and some times being done for the preferences of patients in order to get prettier and more nice looking insurance companies never agreed to foot the bills of these high cost procedures in western world. This led to tourists and patients seek help overseas to find doctors and hospitals providing these procedures. They started coming to perform these procedure sand with these plastic and cosmetic surgical procedures they took some tourism packages thus resulting in called as medical tourism.

Plastic surgery in Malaysia is certainly evolved around this very typical story line of medical tourism. Though medical tourism in Malaysia is not just plastic and cosmetic surgery procedures but a lot of them are patients from neighboring countries to Malaysia. A big number of patients come from Indonesia due to better healthcare services in Malaysia. But medical tourism patients for cosmetic and plastic surgery come form Europe and America. The city called Penang is famous for its plastic surgeons and director of one hospital who is basically from USA told an audience in medical tourism first world congress at San Francisco that half of the US patients who take medical tourism packages at their hospital are wives and relatives of doctors in USA And most of these patients seek some plastic and cosmetic procedure like face lift, abdominoplasty, liposuction, nose job etc.

Procedures in Plastic and cosmetic surgery in Malaysia are famous as the surgeons in Malaysia has always been popular over seas. The plastic surgeons like Dr Somasundaram Sathapan offer breast augmentation, face lift, eye brow lift, abdominoplasty or tummy tuck, are few of the top procedures performed. The over all costs of procedures in Malaysia are half or even less than that of US and European countries. This cost comparison is not just the cost of procedure but it includes the air fare, accommodation and meals with some basic travel and tour costs. These packages are designed to provide earliest appointments and bookings for surgeries if dates are not booked before. This is why destination Malaysia as an exclusive plastic surgery medical tourism hub is gaining world recognition. Malaysia offers fist world hospitals for these procedures at second world costs of procedures. Most of the cosmetic and plastic surgery procedures patients at destination Malaysia are from UK, New Zealand and Australia. Wellness Visit at www.wellnessvisit.com is eagerly awaiting to welcome these tourists from all over the world.

http://www.wellnessvisit.com