A Healthful Vacation

Fortis Flight Lieutenant Rajan Dhall Hospital in New Delhi makes surgery and other procedures comfortable—and fashionable, too. Each spacious hospital room says “vacation” rather than “hospital,” and is outfitted with accommodations for a guest, flat-screen television, and a patient’s own personal nurse’s station. Some suites feature the same spare, modern look as new upscale lofts, minus the kitchens. One even features a living room and dining room with Pottery Barn–style furnishings.

About 30 visitors from Governor Tim Pawlenty’s October trade mission to India took the tour, which Fridley-based medical device maker Medtronic helped to organize. Based on the two suites they saw, many attendees said they’d feel comfortable receiving care at the Indian hospital.

Medical tourists are people who choose to have elective and necessary surgeries abroad. What drives them to fly more than 16 hours from the states to this Indian hospital for health care? “It’s the cost factor,” says Dr. Uma Nambiar, the hospital’s medical director, who spoke to the trade delegation. Medical care in India is typically a fifth of the U.S. price and includes the cost of bringing a relative, Nambiar says. Josef Woodman, an expert on medical tourism who wrote the 2007 book Patients Beyond Borders as a guide to Americans who are looking for alternatives outside the U.S. health care system, gives the example of knee replacement surgery, a $40,000 procedure in the United States that costs about $8,500 in India.

"It's almost a rock-star experience from beginning to end in India. They can't change the culture, but they can create an insulated experience."

Experts say medical tourism to India gives American patients who can’t afford angioplasties or joint replacement surgeries a lower-cost alternative. Some patients are seeking procedures and medical devices not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), such as hip-joint resurfacing, which was available in India before the FDA approved it in 2006. Hip-joint resurfacing is an alternative to replacing the joint in which damaged thigh bone is removed, and the ball and hip socket are reshaped, or resurfaced.

“Medical travel isn’t for everyone,” Woodman says. “But for those people who are a fit, it at least gives them a choice.” According to Woodman, 180,000 Americans headed across borders for medical treatment in 2007, and a small percentage—about 5 to 7 percent—go to India. India is best known among medical travelers for heart surgery and orthopedics. Other top medical destinations include Antigua and Barbuda, Brazil, Costa Rica, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, and Thailand.

Second Opinions

At the gleaming new Fortis hospital, which resembles a modern American facility, Nambiar says medical tourism is a growing trend. Still, the private hospital caters mostly to Indians, most of whom pay out of pocket. The medical tourists come from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Several success stores are featured on the hospital’s Web site, fortishealthcare.com.

“The health care in the best hospitals, whether it’s Singapore, Malaysia, or India, is equal to or better than [those in the United States],” Woodman says. It’s up to the would-be medical tourist to do some homework, though. “You can’t just go to India meet a doctor in the parking lot and have a procedure,” he adds.