Take quality treatment at affordable prices: Indian commerce minister tells foreign patients

India, which is grappling to provide healthcare to all of its citizens, is calling foreign patients to take treatment from some of its “world standard” hospitals.

Nurul Islam Hasibfrom Greater Noida, New Delhibdnews24.com
Published : 23 April 2016, 06:54 PM
Updated : 23 April 2016, 07:18 PM

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said those hospitals were ready to provide “quality treatment at affordable prices”.

She also suggested that the patients verify her claim online, as India was giving priority on health tourism as a services sector to create more jobs and wealth.

Sitharaman was speaking at the valedictory session of the three-day ‘Global Exhibition of Services’ held at Greater Noida, some 30 kilometres off New Delhi.

The exhibition was aimed at branding the services sector of one of the world’s largest countries.

The whole exhibition brought 450 exhibitors and drew more than 20,000 visitors. Over 60 countries including Bangladesh were represented in the show.

One of the exhibits was healthcare, which the commerce minister said was “a big success” as African and regional countries had shown much interest in it.

She said the state-of-the-art treatment costs much lower than it does in other developed countries.

To give patients further confidence, she said, “the mars mission is a classic example of what India can achieve”. India’s mars mission was much cheaper than the Western countries.

She said “costing, quality and standards” were all the three ingredients that can make any services sector acceptable.

“India has achieved that quality,” she said.

The Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) with the support of the commerce ministry organised the ‘Healthcare Trade Mart’ in concurrence of the global exhibition.

Nirmala Sitharaman

The Mart saw active participation from 17 countries including Bangladesh, and top notch private healthcare providers from India.

Md Rafiq-Ul-Alam, Chief Executive Officer of Meditrain that offers training to doctors, among other activities, in Bangladesh, participated in the healthcare mart.

He said the “innovative” show gave him the opportunity to learn more about India’s healthcare.

“I was seeking partnerships in the field of training and technology transfer to Bangladesh,” he said.

“We (Bangladesh) have some hospitals that provide modern treatment. We can also promote medical tourism targeting India’s northeastern states bordered with us”.

Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis are believed to be among patients going to India for treatment, though there is no official statistics on this.

A report of an Indian business chamber, FICCI, last year showed that an estimated 500 patients come to India from Bangladesh daily for treatment.