Envisioning the future
No dearth of technology or information will ever make a sick person suffer in their native land, when there is some remedy to their illness available, albeit in a remote or distance foreign location. According to the National Cancer Institute, there are approximately 300 different varieties of cancers that affect humans. The cures for most of them are still in their infancy. In spite of the aforesaid fact, hundreds of thousands of people will still swarm to a foreign country to undertake any treatment that exists. And this trend is only likely to grow with the variety and complexity of the disease.
Major industrial sources predict that the healthcare tourism industry is likely to reach three digit billion marks by the 2012 fiscal. With the multiplicity of life threatening and lifestyle diseases afflicting the common man, it is difficult not to agree to those numbers; and even if it doesn’t, what is certain is that this is a big industry with an age old concept that will continue to run for many more years to come. The industry might change shape and name in the long run, but the phenomenon of patients travelling from one destination to another for medical care will certainly continue.
Nations are fast gearing up and offering state-of-the-art treatment facilities to health tourists worldwide. More and more youngsters opting for medicine as a career, new drug discoveries, new pharmaceutical patents, medical transcription assistance, newer surgical technologies and highly sophisticated contrivances are all direct indicators of a proliferating healthcare sector. These, coupled with speedily growing national infrastructure, customized insurance policies, cheaper travel procedures, easily acquired loans, comfortable pre- and post-operative schemes, will definitely augment the burgeoning international medical tourism industry in the future.
