Medical Tourism
Promotion of Health Tourism in India
The global growth in the flow of patients and health professionals as well as medical technology, capital funding and regulatory regimes across national borders has given rise to new patterns of consumption and production of healthcare services over recent decades. The free movement of goods and services under the auspices of the World Trade Organization and its General Agreement on Trade in Services has accelerated the liberalization of the trade in health services, as have developments with regard to the use of regional and bi-lateral trade agreements. As health care is predominantly a service industry, this has made health services more tradable, global commodities. A significant new element of this trade has involved the movement of patients across borders in the pursuit of medical treatment and health care, a phenomenon commonly termed - medical tourism‘.
The consumption of health care in a foreign land is not a new phenomenon, and developments must be situated within the historical context. Individuals have travelled abroad for health benefits since ancient times, and during the 19th Century in Europe for example there was a fashion for the growing middle-classes to travel to spa towns to take the waters‘, which were believed to have health-enhancing qualities. During the 20th Century, wealthy people from less developed areas of the world travelled to developed nations to access better facilities and highly trained medics. However, the shifts that are currently underway with regard to medical tourism are quantitatively and qualitatively different from earlier forms of health-related travel. The key differences are a reversal of this flow from developed to less developed nations, more regional movements, and the emergence of an international market for patients. The key features of the new 21st Century style of medical tourism are summarized below:
The large numbers of people travelling for treatment; the shift
The global growth in the flow of patients and health professionals as well as medical technology, capital funding and regulatory regimes across national borders has given rise to new patterns of consumption and production of healthcare services over recent decades. The free movement of goods and services under the auspices of the World Trade Organization and its General Agreement on Trade in Services has accelerated the liberalization of the trade in health services, as have developments with regard to the use of regional and bi-lateral trade agreements. As health care is predominantly a service industry, this has made health services more tradable, global commodities. A significant new element of this trade has involved the movement of patients across borders in the pursuit of medical treatment and health care, a phenomenon commonly termed - medical tourism‘.
The consumption of health care in a foreign land is not a new phenomenon, and developments must be situated within the historical context. Individuals have travelled abroad for health benefits since ancient times, and during the 19th Century in Europe for example there was a fashion for the growing middle-classes to travel to spa towns to take the waters‘, which were believed to have health-enhancing qualities. During the 20th Century, wealthy people from less developed areas of the world travelled to developed nations to access better facilities and highly trained medics. However, the shifts that are currently underway with regard to medical tourism are quantitatively and qualitatively different from earlier forms of health-related travel. The key differences are a reversal of this flow from developed to less developed nations, more regional movements, and the emergence of an international market for patients. The key features of the new 21st Century style of medical tourism are summarized below:
The large numbers of people travelling for treatment; the shift