Foreign patients look to Kerala for succour

It was a miraculous escape for Elena, a 28-year-old woman from Doha. Within an hour of her landing in Kochi, doctors at Sunrise Hospital, Kakkanad, performed a laparoscopic surgery and removed a tumour from her ovary.

She was air-lifted from Doha to Kochi for an emergency surgery on May 19. Dr Hafiz Rehman, who performed the surgery, told Business Standard that the Doha woman was pregnant with twins and both were safe after the surgery. She was discharged on May 22 and is all set to go back to her country hale and healthy.

This is just one example of how Kerala is gaining reputation for world-class medical facilities, particularly in the Gulf region.

Till recently, the God's Own Country was identified with ayurvedic treatment, but now the state is becoming one of the major centres for allopathic treatment as well.

According to a study conducted by the Kerala chapter of CII, the state would be one of the most important five destinations in the world for modern medical facilities and would have 100,000 foreign patients by 2010.

It also estimates a total market size of Rs 4,500 crore in India by 2012. The state is already gearing up to tap the potential with the government declaring 2006 as the year of medical tourism to club tourism with medical treatment.

A few hospitals such as Lakeshore and Sunrise in Kochi, Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Thiruvananthapuram, and Malabar Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS) at Kozhikode have already been well-equipped to receive patients from abroad.

According to Dr Rijo Mathew, a large number of patients from abroad come to Kerala for laparoscopic and cardiac surgeries as well as for infertility treatment, cardiac CT scan, dental and cosmetic surgeries, cataract operations, intraocular lens implantations, organ transplant surgery, microsurgeries and liposuction for obesity.

Major superspeciality hospitals in the state receive patients from UAE, the Sultante of Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives. The number of patients from Europe is also on the rise. On an average, hospitals here get 5,000 -8,000 foreign patients a year and this year the number is expected to exceed 10,000.

Mathew said that the number was increasing by 4-5 per cent every year from the Gulf region, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

In the last month, a Kochi hospital performed 10 cardiac CT scans for patients from Sri Lanka who came as a group.

According to doctors, the cost of treatment in Kerala is just one-tenth of what it costs in Europe and one-fifth in the Gulf. Long wait-list for surgeries in Europe is also a boon to hospitals in Kerala. A patient has to wait at least five years for a cardiac surgery in the UK and 30-40 of people in the country cannot afford to pay insurance premium.

The cost of laparoscopic hysterectomy in the UAE is Rs 4-5 lakh while in India, it is just Rs 40,000- 50,000. While a patient in the US has to cough up Rs 1 lakh for a cardiac CT scan, in India it is less than Rs 10,000. A 4D ultrasound scan, which shows the face of a fetus as in a photograph, costs Rs 21,000 in the UK. In India, it is Rs 1,500-2,000.

Mathew said that the number of requests from the UK for ultra sound scan for gallstones or renal stones is on the increase because of various hurdles for such a scan in that country.