Another new outsourcing trend India a new destination for travel and surgery

Harish Baliga May 18, 2005

India is soon becoming the destination for not only travel but also medical surgery. Indian medical surgeons are gaining reputation in the world as worlds best and people from all over the world are eager to avail Indian medical expertise.

The travel firm Thomas Cook will offer "sun and surgery" package deals to India for patients tired of waiting for operations in Britain's National Health System (NHS), a newspaper reported.

Thomas Cook hopes, within the next few months, to be offering deals that include flights, operations, accommodation in a private hospital and even recuperation time on the beach, the Daily Mail reported.

The newspaper said the firm is using Britain to test the market. Standards in many Indian private hospitals are often higher than in many British NHS facilities, it said. Costs are much lower than in private hospitals in Britain, it added.

Many Britons complain they must wait long periods for surgery in the NHS system.

"What we want to offer are healthcare holidays where people can go and have their operations in hospitals recommended to them in our brochures," said Ameeta Munshi, Thomas Cook's spokesman in India.

"This is going to be affordable and for anyone who is in pain and can't be treated on the NHS, the fact that healthcare is so much cheaper here anyway means the whole deal is going to be very attractive," she was quoted as saying.

"Our lawyers and insurance experts are looking over the final details but we would expect to launch the deals within the next two to three months," she said. Cheaper medical costs lured up to 150,000 international visitors to India last year, with around 400 from Britain, or a rise of 15 percent in British patients in one year, the newspaper said.