Even the poorest country in the world, USA , is rushing to India unlike the Bangladeshis whose cutting edge medical facilities built by Chinese and Koreans are unaffordable for US billionaires and that every Lungi wearer uses.
India’s Hospitals Are Filling Up With Desperate Americans
By
Daniel Block
Indian doctors inspect an x-ray photograph at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital on March 12, 2013. (Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images)
Indian doctors inspect an x-ray photograph at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital on March 12, 2013. (Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images)
JANUARY 2, 2018, 2:43 PM
NEW DELHI — In October 2008, Henry Konczak went to get a blood test.
“I was getting short of breath,” says Konczak, a 65-year-old musician and video producer from Ohio. “All of a sudden they said, ‘Get to the hospital immediately.’”
Konczak had a blood infection and spent the next month receiving intravenous antibiotics, but his misfortune didn’t stop there. A doctor discovered that he had a heart murmur and would need surgery to replace his mitral valve. He called the nearby Cleveland Clinic to inquire about costs. The quote? A whopping $130,000, not including the surgeon’s fees.
Konczak says his insurance had been abruptly terminated when he turned 50 and he could not afford a replacement. When he heard the procedure price, he was shocked.
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“I said, ‘I’ll send you my financials. I don’t make that kind of money,’” he recalls. “She said, ‘Well, good luck with that.’”
Facing a choice between bankruptcy and death, Konczak chose a third option: India
. On Dec. 23, 2008, Konczak successfully underwent surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, a prominent private facility in New Delhi. The entire three-week trip — from flights to lodging to medical fees — cost $10,000.
“I saved my life, and I saved my business,” he says.
Konczak’s story may seem unorthodox, but he’s hardly alone. For Americans struggling to meet health care costs, medical tourism has become a surprisingly common choice. Estimating the number of medical tourists is tricky, but according to a government survey, more than
300,000 U.S. residents may go abroad each year for health care. There are many reasons why Americans travel for treatment, but the main one is money.
India is a particularly attractive choice for American patients, since it has a number of hospitals offering quality care from English-speaking professionals at affordable rates. Vinayak Shourie, the international marketing director at Fortis Healthcare, estimated that 20 percent of his company’s business comes from foreigners — and that figure is growing. India introduced medical visas in
June 2005 to promote the industry, and it recently began allowing citizens of nearly 150 countries to apply
entirely online. The tourism ministry issued more than
170,000 medical visas in 2016, a 45 percent increase over the previous year. It’s become a big business for the country, and business is booming.
