Medical Tourism flow from Africa to India

Medical Tourism has transitioned to Medical Value Travel as hundreds of patients / medical tourist are looking online every day to seek answers related to their medical travel and most of these medial tourists are preferring india as their choice of destination preferably to these common factors:

1. Affordable medical treatment in india as compared to west / home countries.
2. Quality medical treatment in india, reference to latest investigation and diagnostic tools / machines.
3. English as common language communication bridge between patients and medical staff in india.
4. Ease of visa availability as some of the countries are availing the benefits of e-visa option provided by government of india.
5. Preference to international medical tourist in india by indian private hospitals.

The Medical Tourist market in India was estimated at around $6 billion in 2022 and is projected to increase to $13 billion by 2026. Major countries contributing to india’s share are notably Bangladesh, Iraq, CIS countries, Afghanistan (re-starting Yr 2025), Oman, Yemen, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania and West African countries like Congo, Chad, Cameroon etc. account for about 88 per cent of the total international patients visiting India. The Medical Value Travel industry in India gets maximum patients for heart surgery, knee transplant, Neuro-spine and Transplants as the cost of treatment in India is considered to be the lowest in Asia (*source FICCI https://ficci.in/sector/medical-value-travel-mvt).

Interestingly it has now become mandatory to upload all the medical tourist DOCUMENTS in AAYSUH portal launched by govt. of india to keep a track of the medical tourist coming to india in accordance to foreign travel registration rules and regulations for medical tourist coming to india.

The African countries have been continuously providing significant growth into india’s medical value treatment business by engaging with the indian private hospitals through:

THE MOST FOLLOWED WAYS….

• Direct MoU (memorandum of understanding) between indian private hospitals and respective African country government.
• Insurance sector in African countries having contracts with indian private hospitals.
• Referral doctors from public and private sectors in African region
• Continuous medical education activities + capacity building programmes initiated by indian private hospitals from the africa region.
• Setting up of Information centres by indian private hospitals in African countries to strengthen confidence between hospital and medical tourist for African region countries.

Apart from being one of the leaders in providing medical tourism / medical value treatment to African medial tourists / patients, the government of india has implemented various initiatives to push India’s rise as a hub of medical value travel through promotion of ayurveda, yoga and other Indian systems of medicine in the international market.

-Sandy Sandiep Duchana https://www.instagram.com/sandysandiep/