Soon, Govt to set Standard Treatment packages for foreign medical patients at Indian hospitals

In order to avoid the negative connotations associated with medical tourism, with the said standardization, the initiative will provide treatment to foreign patients in a far more streamlined manner. The most common treatments that patients from abroad seek are cancer treatment, organ transplant surgeries, and plastic surgery, etc.

Since Heal In India is a medical tourism online facilitation company, they cater to patients from various parts of the globe. The team consists of medical professionals, renowned doctors and wellness experts from different parts of the country. They offer a wide range of wellness and medical facilities, aside from economically priced treatments and procedures.

An anonymous government official said, "When talking about medical treatment, tourism somehow does not sound right, which is why there have been discussions around branding the process as 'heal in India' wherein we provide health care delivery services to patients coming from outside India in a far streamlined manner."

"The steps could also include checks on pricing. The objective behind the standardization of packages is to ensure patients coming on a medical visa for treatment are not overcharged. As things happen right now, different hospitals quote different rates or monetary packages for almost similar procedures or treatment, which is not fair to the patient. The idea is to standardize it so that variation is not huge," the official added.

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"There need to be a system in place where these patients can register their complaints as the country is new for most of them and they would not know where to go if they faced any issues during their stay," the official further stated.

Soon a new campaign 'heal by India' parallel to this will be introduced by the government, which will look at providing manpower from India in the health care sector based on requirements in other countries.

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The official told Hindustan Times "Heal by India initiative is meant to generate job opportunities abroad for our trained professionals in the sector, especially those in the allied health care sector that has huge demand outside India. There are about 56 professional allied health care segments that include x-ray operator, other technicians, physiotherapist etc, for which there is huge demand."

Further explaining he added, "The idea is to provide trained human resources to heal the world based on their requirement. There is a huge demand for psychiatrists/psychologists in a country like the USA. Japan needs nurses from us, and two colleges have been identified in the northeast where Japanese language instructors are teaching nurses the language so that they don't face language barrier there."

A Niti Aayog member is overseeing the drafting of the framework under which India is likely to open offices in different countries to facilitate the process under the skill development mission. The Union ministry of health and family welfare had earlier this month organized a two-day Chintan shivir, a consultation with various stakeholders, which led to the development.

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