Foreign Patients

Several corporate hospitals say international patient footfalls have crossed pre-pandemic levels

Bangladesh was the largest user of India's health services exports in 2015-16 with more than 1.65 lakh people from the neighboring nation making its way to Indian hospitals out of 4.6 lakh total inbound patients.More than 58,000 medical visas were issued to Bangladeshi nationals in 2015-16 who bought $ 0.34 billion worth of services, a recent report by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) under the Commerce Ministry has shown.Since 2016, Bangladesh has unseated the United States as the country where the highest number of foreign tourists originated from, mostly due to medical tourism. A new bus service between Kolkata and Dhaka and a new rail link between Kolkata and the western city of Khulna in Bangladesh was inaugurated earlier this month during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit.Medical tourism from nations with higher average health costs or poorer medical infrastructure was to the tune of $620 million in 2016-17. This was ...