Medical Tourism – The Road Ahead

These are some of the interesting anecdotal stories from the department of Urology, Nephrology and Transplantation at Sri Ramachandra Hospital. The department is no stranger to medical tourism and has always attracted patients since 1996. At first it used to get patients from Nepal and Sri Lanka with various problems and now gets patients from all over the world.

Dr.Sunil Shroff the Head when asked about the departments experience with medical tourism said: 'As the department has grown over the years our volumes of both local and foreign patients have gone up. Initially when we started a lot of patient came for treatment from Eastern part of the country, but now we get them from everywhere in the world especially Nigeria, Yemen and Oman. On being asked why do they choose their hospital in comparison to others he said: 'I think we have all the facilities under one roof with world-class doctors. The rooms are spacious and overall the value for money I think is good for these patients.' He also added: ‘we do not believe in marketing our services though we are an ISO 9000 certified department. I firmly believe the traffic grows because happy and satisfied patients refer other patients to us.’

He is aware of the CII-Mcknskey report on Medical tourism and its potential for India. He thinks that we need to get better-standardized practice in the hospital and the need to improve our infrastructure facilities. The recent JCIA accreditation for which his own hospital is working towards would help tremendously he felt.