Better connectivity making Tricity a medical tourism destination, say doctors

CHANDIGARH: The Tricity is becoming a favoured medical tourism destination for patients from countries like Afghanistan, Yeman, Iraq and Nigeria, according to doctors. What's helping is the 28 daily flights from Chandigarh and three daily Shatabdi Express, enabling easy connectivity with the Tricity.

"There are 15-20 foreigner patients coming to the Tricity hospitals in a month. This has recently picked up since the last four to five months due to proper air and road connectivity," said Dr Vinod Kumar, senior consultant, orthopaedics, and joint replacement surgery at a private hospital in the city.

What makes the Tricity a better medical destination? "With less pollution, no traffic bottlenecks, proximity to various tourism hubs and Kasauli and Shimla, the Tricity is coming up strongly on the medical tourism map," said Dr Gaurav Maheshwari, a senior consultant and head, surgical gastroentrology, at a private hospital.

Affordability, no waiting period and lot of expertise are making patients prefer this region. "There are many people here and in nearby Punjab where there are NRIs. This section often comes to Chandigarh, which has one of the best tertiary hospital care," said Dr Sanjay Khanna, ENT surgeon, practising in a private set up.

Dr Vinod also said there are facilities for Ayurveda and Yoga which can play vital role in rehabilitation of these patients coming from various countries. Dr Gaurav shared that in 2017 around 5 lakh patients visited India on medical visa for treatment and medical tourism industry in India is likely to touch 9 billion USD by 2020. "As Indian doctors are ranked as best trained doctors worldwide, our surgical outcomes are comparable with international standards and the cost of treatment in India is almost one fifth or one seventh of cost of treatment in the US or Europe," he added.