The Prime Minister will most likely announce the initiative on August 15 even as the Health Ministry is finalising the last touches to the plan that aims to facilitate overseas patients
The Indian government has planned to have interpreters and special desks at 10 airports, a multi-lingual portal and simplified visa norms for the government’s ‘Heal in India’ initiative to boost medical tourism.
The Prime Minister will most likely announce the initiative on August 15 even as the Health Ministry is finalising the last touches to the plan that aims to facilitate overseas patients. India has identified 44 countries from where a large number of people come to India for medical purposes, PTI reported quoting official sources.
The Health Ministry is collaborating with Tourism, Ayush, Civil Aviation ministries, Ministry of External Affairs, hospitals and other stakeholders to build a roadmap to connect overseas patients with healthcare facilities in India to boost medical travel.
The countries from where patients come were: Africa, Latin American, SAARC and Gulf countries. The 10 airports where the facilities will be available were: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Guwahati.
A source quoted by PTI said: “In a bid to boost medical travel and provide end-to-end patient journey facilitation, the government will deploy language interpreters and set up health desks at the 10 identified airports for queries related to medical travel,transport, boarding and lodging among others.” The ‘Heal in India’ programme aims to transform India as a global hub for medical and wellness tourism.
According to estimates, the medical tourism market which was valued at USD 6 billion in 2020 fiscal year is expected to more than double and reach USD 13 billion by 2026, an official source said.
The Health Ministry, in collaboration with the National Health Authority, has developed a multi-lingual portal which would be a one-stop shop for services provided by medical travel facilitators and hospitals with an interface for foreign patients. The portal is also likely to be launched on August 15. The portal will display standardised package rates based on the classification of hospitals and different systems of medicines including modern and traditional systems. It will also have a grievance redressal section as well as an option to submit patient feedback.
The health ministry has also chalked out a plan to boost the infrastructure at 37 hospitals across 17 cities in 12 states: Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Assam. These states see a lot of overseas patients.
The government is also working to ease medical visa norms for patients and their companions from the 44 identified countries.
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