Sub-committees to look into medical tourism regulation

The National Medical and Wellness Tourism Promotion Board on Wednesday said it will constitute three sub committees to immediately look into the issues related to regulation, accreditation and marketing of medical tourism.

The board has also decided to prepare a data bank of available resources in the field of medical and wellness services in the country and to develop mechanism to disseminate such information to the source markets.

"India's competitive advantage lies in a large pool of well trained medical professionals and its cost competitiveness compared to other countries which will certainly take this niche segment of tourism to its greater height," said Mahesh Sharma, the board's president and minister of state for tourism.

Sharma was speaking at the first meeting of the National Medical and Wellness Tourism Promotion Board set up by the tourism ministry to boost medical tourism in the country.

The board during the meeting observed that the healthcare delivery system in the country has improved and there were several positive factors in our healthcare system due to which several countries now look East, particularly India, because of the quality offered at an affordable cost.

"There was a need to create a system that needed to be devised to iron out the unevenness in the delivery system, more accredited hospitals, easy visa regime and providing linkages between service providers," he added.