The Indian Alternative--Medical Tourism

India is the leading provider of healthcare to foreign nationals be they from neighbouring countries, lacking in facilities and standards, or from the West, circumventing waiting times, high cost private healthcare or private health insurance premiums. The Indian medical industry is now poised to move into a new area of "medical outsourcing," where it serves as an extension to provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries.

This achievement is underpinned by the Indian National Health Policy, which in 2002 declared the treatment of foreign patients as an "export" service and deemed it "eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings." Government and private sector studies in India project growth in medical tourism between US $1 billion and US $2 billion by the year 2012, estimated on a 30 per cent year-on-year growth, which is already in evidence.

Today, India 's healthcare industry is thriving like other service sectors thanks to the top-rated education system that is churning out multi disciplinary professional including an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 doctors and nurses each year. The alternative healthcare possibilities that India offers to the outside world are based on a high-end healthcare system equipped with infrastructure and human resource comparable to the best in the world.